Script Reading (2)
On the day Sword-Bound Gentleman’s Hyang-dan received the recasting call, Ryu Cheong-ah felt a strange little thrill.
Relief, maybe, that all her practice had meant something.
And then the sense of achievement that came with having been recognized by Jaekyung, the writer.
She could only call it pride.
Of course, she knew a writer’s choice didn’t directly translate into casting, but still, Jaekyung must have been satisfied too for things to have turned out this way.
So I’ll get to see him again.
That thought alone made her heart lift a little higher.
So she excitedly told her family the good news too.
"Oh, goodness! I knew it! Of course our daughter would make it! You won’t even need another audition! A weekday drama lead, huh? That’s the biggest thing there is, isn’t it!"
"Ha-ha! That’s great! Really great, sweetheart!"
Both of her parents were overjoyed.
For her very first role to land her the lead in a Wednesday-Thursday miniseries—of course the whole family had reason to laugh and hug each other that day.
Her per-episode pay, negotiated with the broadcaster’s cooperation, was three million won.
It wasn’t much considering the scale and importance of the production, but for a complete rookie actress, it was impossible to deny how extraordinary the treatment was.
Over sixteen episodes, that came to a total of forty-eight million won.
For a twenty-three-year-old like Cheong-ah, it was an almost astronomical sum.
Enough to pay off the family’s urgent debts and breathe again.
And if the drama did well, commercials would follow too; maybe she could really clear the debt and move her family into a decent home at last.
She had a dream.
Her family had once been torn apart and brought low, but if she did well, they could be at peace again.
If she became a more famous person, then even their family agency would have some room to breathe.
Until then.
"Honey, just trust our daughter. You know she’s our family’s hope, right?"
"Oh, stop that. Our Cheong-ah isn’t the kind of child who’d forget what she owes us, is she? She’s always been such a filial daughter!"
...Just, until then, let’s keep going.
She had gone through such a brutal stretch that she looked exhausted now, but in time, her parents wouldn’t be living with that same constant sense of urgency.
Then the family would be able to laugh without worry, just like they used to.
For that, she had to do well.
"Hello! Lighting director! I’m Ryu Cheong-ah, cast as Hyang-dan!"
"Hello! Sound director! I’m Ryu Cheong-ah, cast as Hyang-dan!"
"Hello! I’m the one playing Hyang-dan— ah! P-please let me carry that too!"
The script reading was the first day the entire production team gathered together.
She remembered hearing that manners mattered a great deal in entertainment.
Cheong-ah greeted everyone she saw, trying her best to make a good impression.
Thankfully, everyone smiled back at her, and the atmosphere so far had been good.
The actors she’d be working with were kind.
The production staff, contrary to what she’d heard, weren’t arrogant at all.
That was partly because they’d been surprised by the acting she’d shown in her audition video, but for a rookie like Cheong-ah, there was no way to know that.
At any rate, after that moment passed, the script reading began.
This was the meeting before filming, where they checked the chemistry and went over the work.
One by one, everyone introduced themselves.
After that, CP Go Yeongchan gave a briefing on the shooting schedule.
And there was someone at that gathering who drew Cheong-ah’s eye.
Oh, it’s the writer.
He stood out immediately, probably because he had such a sharp face.
He mostly wore a blank expression, and when he spoke to the people around him, he would lower his voice and murmur in a soft, measured way that made him seem extremely serious.
Their eyes met for a moment.
Then Jaekyung casually looked away.
That, somehow, flustered Cheong-ah.
Jaekyung hadn’t jolted and snapped his head around in surprise, nor had he flinched and visibly shaken himself apart.
That alone felt strangely unfamiliar.
Huh?
Everyone lived in a different world.
Cheong-ah had lived a life where people’s eyes always gathered around her wherever she went, a life where it was only natural for someone to show her goodwill when their eyes met.
She’d never gone around boasting that everyone looked at her kindly, of course, but that didn’t change the fact that unfamiliar reactions carried their own eerie, disorienting weight.
Usually, that kind of discomfort ended in anxiety.
What is it? Does he not like me? Did he want someone else for the role?
She began to worry for no reason.
From what she’d learned, having a smooth relationship with the writer was extremely important during filming.
Even aside from that, she couldn’t explain why, but she found herself wanting to act in a way that would satisfy Jaekyung’s standards.
Had she done something wrong?
Was she lacking somewhere?
The more her worries swelled, the more self-conscious she became, and the more self-conscious she became, the more her eyes were fixed on Jaekyung.
She didn’t even realize it herself.
That she was staring almost point-blank at his face.
And that Jaekyung was finding that stare deeply uncomfortable.
"All right, next is Ryu. Shall we try Scene 31?"
"... "
"Ryu?"
"Ah, y-yes! Sorry!"
Only then, belatedly realizing she’d been called, Cheong-ah shot to her feet.
To think she’d blank out from the start and not even hear the director properly.
She hurriedly, and with all her force, blurted, "T-then I’ll give it a try!"
As she spoke, she flicked a glance at Jaekyung’s reaction.
His eyes were fixed on her.
But his air was still almost indifferent.
There was something in that gaze that made her want to try harder.
Cheong-ah let out a breath and steadied herself.
She emptied her head, turned it white like a blank page, and began painting the scene over it.
She organized the scattered elements of the scene drifting chaotically in her mind, then set herself down inside it.
Wearing another person’s clothes.
The young madam who had lost the woman who raised her, yet stubbornly guarded the inheritance she’d been left behind.
The girl who had been taken in by that same woman, trying to carry forward her heart, and in doing so, began reaching out to others when she picked up Yeong-ho, who had collapsed in the street.
Becoming Hyang-dan was a joy.
Whenever Cheong-ah, without thinking, found herself feeling Hyang-dan from the inside, she would quietly form words to define her.
A relationship that had not begun because they needed each other, but one in which they came to need each other because they met.
A child who would become happy through that bond.
Direction was the principle of action.
If you knew the principle, you could substitute it in.
What mattered was suitability.
Unity with the role.
And naturally—
"When those rowdies are swarming around, we still have to make a living. If I close up shop trembling all over, who’s going to scatter any grain for me?"
Cheong-ah was the most perfect actress imaginable for Hyang-dan.
Her tone changed in an instant.
Some people widened their eyes in shock.
Others let out silent gasps of admiration.
With nothing more than opening her mouth, she had the power to wipe every other color out of the room.
It was talent so unfair it was almost absurd.
* * *
Should he call it well-deserved acclaim?
The overall script reading had been more than satisfactory, but among everyone there, Ryu Cheong-ah had stood out the most.
What was good acting, really?
He could have answered that question by pointing at Ryu Cheong-ah.
The ability to make a person look like someone else while they were acting.
The ability to draw curiosity and immersion toward that other person.
Ryu Cheong-ah hadn’t even added any extravagant reactions or facial acting; with only the minimum necessary work to support her own immersion, she’d already shown the kind of force that pulled people in.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say the air on set had been rewritten before and after Ryu Cheong-ah’s performance.
Several people looked as though their motivation had surged quite a bit.
Min Byeongki was the most fired up of all.
"Good! That was very good! All right, let’s move on!"
He’s having a blast.
Give a man a sash and he starts struttin’ around like he owns the place.
Go Yeongchan kept quiet for the sake of Min Byeongki’s dignity, and Jaekyung had no reason to get closer to the set than necessary, so he stayed silent too.
Since it was now the director’s turn to protect his own authority, leaving him alone had produced this result.
Hm...
If he started trying to get uppity after filming began, Jaekyung would have to stomp on him once more.
While he was thinking that, the turn moved on.
Ryu Cheong-ah sat back down amid the cheers around her, smiling awkwardly.
Once they were no longer in the actual portion where lines had to be matched, she’d probably just sit there and watch the others act.
...Well, she could watch if she wanted to.
Can’t she stop looking at me already?
Once he sat down after his turn, her gaze shot his way again.
More persistent than before.
He didn’t know what it was, but she kept staring at him with bright, shining eyes, then suddenly looked down at the floor and went sullen, then brightened up and stared again.
Should he just signal her with his eyes to stop?
...Forget it. That’ll just get messy.
They should keep it exactly at the level of actor and writer, with no reason to see each other privately.
He didn’t know the details, but there was no reason for the current Ryu Cheong-ah to have a cause for suicide.
As far as he remembered, the Ryu Cheong-ah of four or five years after debut was fine.
No—if he wanted to pin it down safely, maybe a little over two and a half years.
As a rule, this project should end there.
If she was needed for the next one, he could leave only the businesslike thread that connected them until then.
After he made such an effort to ignore her, the script reading finally came to an end.
"Everyone worked hard! Let’s do well from here on out! Hah-hah!"
Min Byeongki started tidying up the room.
"All right, all right! That’s it! Everyone, get up!"
It wasn’t bad.
It had gone as expected, with the expected variables.
Now all that was left was to tweak the small details, and then it would really be time to crank in.
So they’d done everything they needed to, and now they were going home, right?
Not quite. In the end, wasn’t this just socializing among people who worked together?
That was the atmosphere in the industry, and that was the culture of society too.
In 2013, there was one thing that never got skipped.
"Then, since the people who’ll be working together from here on out should get to talk, shall we go eat?"
A company dinner.
He wanted to skip it, if he was being honest...
"Writer-nim, you should get up too! Shouldn’t our actors and you talk about the characters too?"
"Yes, well."
Min Byeongki patted his shoulder.
The man’s nose was practically pointing at the ceiling now.
He seemed too excited, so just a little.
Lowering his voice so the others couldn’t hear, Jaekyung said, "Director."
"Yes?"
"I’ll only make the first stop and head out."
"P-pardon?"
"No, it’s just... I wasn’t planning to go, but you announced it like that without even talking to me first. If nothing else, I should go to save your dignity."
Min Byeongki’s eyes wavered.
In an instant, he looked like a child who had done something wrong.
Well, now I feel bad.
He had meant to do that, but the man was so transparent he couldn’t bring himself to beat him down any further.
How had his senior ever managed to bully this guy so badly?
Was it because he didn’t have a human heart?
Yes, now that he thought about it, that senior probably would have done even worse things.
It was almost enough to understand cruelty from someone’s personality alone.
That man really was a perfect object lesson in what Jaekyung’s life should not become.
"Let’s go. It’s free food, so I might as well eat well."
"Hah, hahat! Exactly! Free food! I even thought about your meal budget, Writer-nim..."
"Yes."
They left the seminar room.
As befitted fifteen years ago, the company dinner spot was a samgyeopsal joint.
Eight thousand won for a serving?
For a place used to company dinners, that was remarkably cheap.
The future, in which samgyeopsal—a dish once considered cheap everyday food—would gain that ridiculous premium, suddenly seemed almost tragic.
* * *
A broadcast-industry dinner wasn’t any more special than an ordinary company dinner.
The senior were treated like seniors by the junior.
Work talk and private talk drifted back and forth.
And strangers introduced themselves to one another.
"I’m Na Jingeon! I’ll do my best!"
"Waaah!!!"
The future great actor—though a shut-in—shouted with booming enthusiasm and downed his soju-mixed beer in one shot.
The people around him clapped, and then one of those alcohol-loving types who existed everywhere immediately poured him another glass.
"I’m Na Jingeon! I’ll keep it up!"
"Ooooooh!!!"
Na Jingeon drank again.
"I’m Na Jingeon! I’ll lay my bones down here!"
"Yaaahhhh!!!"
And again.
That was the broadcasting world.
Actor or not, if you had no career yet, the best you could do was keep your head attached by drinking whatever was poured for you.
It’s been a while.
Last life, after Sword-Bound Gentleman blew up, he hadn’t attended gatherings like this at all.
I’ll just write. You people handle the rest.
Just don’t cause any trouble. If you know what kind of rumors are attached to me, please, just be careful.
That was the kind of vibe he’d given off while pushing people away.
Embarrassing, but he couldn’t help it.
Back then, his writerly ability had been at its peak.
Now I’ll have to adjust a little.
He’d been dragged along more than anything, but it wasn’t entirely unpleasant.
Wasn’t there nothing better than alcohol for figuring out what kind of people someone really was?
Sometimes a careless fragment of something someone blurted out could be a piece of a bomb.
Observation was necessary.
Of course, most of the big bombs had already been defused at the casting stage, so there wasn’t much to worry about.
Na Jingeon’s fine. He’ll probably go home, do his daily quest, and sleep.
Not the public-facing image, but the fact that he was a severe gaming addict known to everyone in the industry, along with the stories surrounding him at this point, made it certain.
He was an active ranker in one of the famous RPGs everyone knew.
He’d apparently lived with enough obsession to cut into his sleep and still do his daily quest without fail.
And Ma Seongphil, who plays Jang Bung-ik, is newly married and probably completely henpecked right now.
He was the type with a chest-puffing, “Ahem!” sort of face, famous for spending his entire life under his wife’s thumb.
That rookie idol they stuck in through a sponsor—didn’t she pivot fully into acting by the time her group fell apart? And the guy next to her shined for a while, then disappeared off to open a barbecue restaurant.
There was a certain fun in gathering only people whose backgrounds were clear.
Could things really be this clean?
"Ah, hello! Writer-nim!"
...Well, it would have been clean if not for this one person.
"I’m Ryu Cheong-ah, playing Hyang-dan! Please take good care of me from now on!"
Ryu Cheong-ah had appeared at his side at some point.
How had she moved over here?
Wasn’t she over at the table on the other side?
"...Yes, please take care of me too. You probably won’t have much reason to see me, though."
"Huh? We won’t get to see each other often?"
"I’ll be almost entirely off set, after all."
"Th-then..."
She rolled her eyes, then continued.
"Q-questions about the character and stuff! Like interpretation!"
"Ask the director."
"I-if anything comes up in a hurry..."
Her attempt to cling to him was oddly flustering.
"What would come up in a hurry? Most of that should be in the script notes."
"R-right..."
Cheong-ah’s shoulders drooped.
She started sipping her drink in small, dainty mouthfuls, and silence settled between them.
It was uncomfortable and unfamiliar.
As he felt it again, there were many ways in which the Ryu Cheong-ah he knew and the one in front of him were different.
Maybe because she was younger.
The Ryu Cheong-ah from before his regression had carried a curious sort of dignity.
She was more adept at dealing with people than she was now, so she hadn’t been this stuttering and twitchy.
Rather than taking the initiative to greet people and start conversations, she was skilled at handling the people who naturally gathered nearby.
She was the kind of person who maintained her dignity no matter where she stood.
The kind who didn’t reveal things through words, but through actions.
Maybe that was why the gap felt so wide.
No, didn’t she have at least some of the same qualities?
Thinking about it, she had always asked a lot of questions, both then and now.
- Don’t you like traveling, Writer-nim? For research while planning a project, or something?
- The internet exists. Why would I go anywhere if I don’t have to?
- Do you have any food preferences?
- If it goes in my mouth, it all tastes the same. What difference does it make?
- Do you like movies?
- I force myself to watch them because there’s a lunatic among my close acquaintances. Once or twice a week, no matter what.
- A woman?
- A man.
Maybe because they’d had so many chances to talk, once they got a little closer she would seize every opening to ask something personal.
It had all been under the pretense of observing people or whatever, but looking back, conversations with Ryu Cheong-ah had started with questions about the role and ended with private chatter.
Come to think of it, she almost never talked about herself.
He realized that suddenly.
When it came to Ryu Cheong-ah, he had learned far more after she died than while she was alive.
That dragged his mood down.
What a pointless thing to think about.
Staying at a gathering like this too long made him have stray thoughts.
When I get back, I need to start writing and revising right away.
Writing a script once didn’t mean it was finished.
What the writer had to watch for during readings was the actor’s habits, the atmosphere created by their tone, and how that tone blended with the other actors.
Based on that, he would have to trim the finished script again or adjust points in the material he’d write going forward.
There was a mountain of work ahead of him.
Just eat this and go...
That was when it happened.
Grasp!
Something seized his sleeve.
"...Writer-nim."
When he turned his head, Ryu Cheong-ah was looking at him.
Her face was flushed red, and her eyes were already unfocused.
"...Ryu Cheong-ah?"
"Writer-nim, do you hate me?"
Hoooooo—
The instant those words were spoken, the whole area went quiet.
Everyone who had been laughing and chatting only a moment ago fell silent and turned their attention toward him.
"Do you not like me?"
Her voice rang out.
Go Yeongchan murmured with interest, "Well, here we go again."
"Senior? What’s starting?"
"Remember this, Byeongki. Whenever they gather like this, there’s always at least one rookie actress like that."
"If there is?"
"A young woman who’s never learned her liquor limit."
This was not the time for commentary.
"Writer-nim..."
"Ryu Cheong-ah."
"Do I annoy you? Is there something you don’t like about me?"
"Listen."
"Do I suck? Huh? N-no, I mean— earlier during the reading, you just kept looking at me all blank and all, even while I was acting, and I kept thinking maybe I’d done something wrong..."
"Chief, could you peel her off me for a second?"
"H-h-h-hey, I’m talking right now, and if you do that to someone else while I’m talking, I’d be so hurt, but I’m just asking a question, did I do something wrong or not..."
She had grabbed him by the collar.
At the same time as he thought something had gone terribly wrong, another realization hit him.
Had he ever seen Ryu Cheong-ah drink before?
...No?
No.
"Writer-nim, are you listening to me??? I’m talking right now, and if you don’t listen to me again then..."
Not once.
"See? This is the highlight of a company dinner."
Go Yeongchan smiled in evident satisfaction.
Even though he hadn’t touched alcohol, that smile looked a little unsteady.
Of course it did.
"I really, truly want to work hard and do well, so if I ask you questions, will you answer them? If you help me even a little, I think I could really do Hyang-dan super well..."
Because she was being shaken by the collar.
* * *
The next day, a long text message arrived on his smartphone.
He thought back on the day before.
-I’M GOING TO BEEEE!!! HYANG-DAN!!! DON’T YOU GET IT!?!?!?
-Enough.
-What do you mean, enough??? I’m telling you!!! I’M HYANG-DAN!?!?!?!?!?
"... "
He quietly closed the phone.
Hooook—
He drank tea and revised the script.
As expected.
Not getting involved was probably the best policy.
Let’s just write.
Cranck-in was almost here, so his adjustments were finished.
Now he really only had to write.
---