Broadcast (3)
Min Byeongki, the director of Sword-Bound Gentleman, was having a hard time of it.
Life was misery.
That’s a lie. It has to be a lie...
The last thing he remembered was collapsing backward after seeing the ratings for Episode 1 the night before.
When he came to, he was home. For a moment he’d even felt relieved, thinking the whole thing must have been a dream—but then he checked the ratings again, and there it was.
4.1%
It wasn’t... a dream!
Byeongki had come down with shortness of breath.
It was because he’d been reminded of those horrific days, when he’d wrecked his last drama.
An episode 1 rating of 4.6 percent right out of the gate.
Back then, he’d comforted himself with a lot of talk about how a beginning may be humble, but the end will be grand, and all that.
But the next episode, and the one after that, and the one after that, had shown no sign of recovery.
As for what happened after that, there was no need to dwell on it.
By the time the disaster had reached full bloom, the ratings had been slipping little by little every week.
Then at some point they broke 1 percent, and in the end fell as low as 0.8.
It had been the kind of appalling number people swore could never possibly come out of a terrestrial broadcaster’s drama slot.
In a way, it had been a historic record.
That much, he could concede.
It was in the past; what was the point of dragging it back up now?
...Or so he had thought until yesterday.
Again? Againnnn?!
A start in the 4-percent range was enough to drag his trauma right back to the surface.
And worse, it was even lower than that time—4.1 percent.
Of course he couldn’t breathe.
Of course terror had to make his vision go dark.
On a day when there wasn’t even any filming, Byeongki barricaded himself at home, biting his nails down to the quick and shaking with fear.
He needed a stage of self-denial.
No, that can’t be right. This time it’ll work! Of course it will! Who wrote this? It’s Han writer’s script! The cast was great! The chief said it would do well too!
And then, suddenly, a thought hit him.
...But if it still flops, whose fault is that?
He reached the conclusion.
Mine...?
And once he did—
“Kyaaaah!”
He kicked the blanket with both feet and screamed.
At the sound, Yoon Geumja, who was still unable to get Min Byeongki, thirty-four years old, out of the house and on his own, roared back at him.
“Byeongki!!! You’re being so damn loud I could die!!!”
But the wounded beast that was Min Byeongki couldn’t stop howling so easily.
In the end, his wail was beaten down by Yoon Geumja’s ten rapid-fire palm strikes, but it had been a war that left him with nothing but injuries—on his heart and on his body alike.
Sniffling, he buried his face in a pillow and shook his head furiously.
No. It can’t be my fault! It can’t be my fault! It has to do well! It has to!
Flash!
He lifted his head.
Yes! Miraculous rebound in Episode 2! Min Byeongki’s dazzling directorial career! Universal praise! Admiration! Even an acceptance speech at year-end awards!!!
Just like that, Byeongki recovered his inner peace.
Now the reason his heart was pounding so loudly was expectation.
The director stared at nothing with a vacant grin, happily indulging in his own fantasy.
But he would not be smiling for long—not until 11 p.m. that night.
“Mm-hm~! This is slick as hell. What an incredible masterpiece, huh???”
After watching Episode 2 on his home TV, Byeongki was intoxicated by his own handiwork.
This was the episode where the action scenes began to pick up and Yeong-ho’s reputation started spreading through the surrounding streets.
Every single scene was a gem, and the first thought that came to him was how adorable, how deliciously satisfying, it all was.
“All right, then. The moment of truth—the ratings!?”
He searched with great excitement, but why was it that human beings only began to regret things once the results were already in front of them?
4.7%
He rubbed his eyes—still 4.7 percent. He bashed the top of his head and looked again—still 4.7 percent.
Ah!
Byeongki flopped straight back onto the bed and shut his eyes.
Director Min Byeongki.
Dead.
* * *
When he woke up, there was a text message from Min Byeongki.
It was astonishing.
So there really is someone who texts longer than Ryu Cheong-ah.
It seemed the ratings for the first week had hit him pretty hard.
I gave a dry laugh, half because it was absurd and half because I couldn’t believe it.
Is this guy really a drama department PD?
Of course the ratings had come out like trash. Why would he ever think anything beyond that was possible?
He’s practically at Sunghoon-hyung’s level.
I thought of Sunghoon-hyung from a few days ago, when we’d watched Episode 1 together and he’d gone around looking up the ratings, then consoled me while hiccuping from excitement.
How was I supposed to take it when a drama department PD reacted at that same level?
I thought about it for a moment, then shook my head.
Still, I guess he must have PTSD after completely ruining his first project.
I’d been lashing him nonstop for a while now. Maybe it was time to give him a carrot.
Since I happened to have time, I got dressed and headed to the drama department.
Sure enough, when I arrived at his desk, Min Byeongki was hunched over, gnawing at his nails.
When he saw me, he jumped.
“W-w-w-w-writer-nim?”
“What on earth kind of formality is that?”
“Eek...”
Ah. Did I really have to watch a middle-aged man sniffle and cry?
“Pull yourself together. What are you even crying for...”
“Wriiiiiter-nim!!!”
He lunged, so I blocked his face with my arm.
“Don’t cling to me. It’s gross.”
“You’ve started hating me too...!?”
“Calm down.”
He still wouldn’t settle, so I clicked my tongue.
To my surprise, Min Byeongki actually calmed down.
Maybe training really was important.
In any case, the situation had reached a lull, and I could sit across from him and talk.
“The ratings are normal.”
“Huh?”
“I said the ratings are normal.”
“T-those numbers...!”
“No, I’m asking because I’m curious: what in the world did you think our first ratings would be?”
Min Byeongki averted his eyes shyly.
“Still, maybe around 20 percent...”
“...”
“...17 percent?”
“Sigh...”
Right. His sense of reality had been smashed to pieces.
“Director.”
“Y-yes...”
“Do we have a single name with real weight on this show? Director, writer, cast. Anyone?”
“...Not really, right?”
“Did we have money for promotion? Time for promotion?”
“That wasn’t exactly there either... The production already spent so much on the fireman show and on filming.”
“Then do people know our drama or not?”
“B-but it was number one in the real-time search rankings, too...”
“Yes, it was. For both Episodes 1 and 2.”
“Then why were the ratings...”
“Because ratings don’t reflect instantly. Why? No one skips Episode 1 and just jumps to Episode 2. And this week, after Episode 1 ended, there was only one rebroadcast, at lunch on Thursday. That means only the housewives who happened to have free time at that hour were able to catch it.”
“Ah?”
Min Byeongki still blinked at me with a foolish expression.
Still, it didn’t look like he hadn’t understood me at all.
“For underdogs like us, it takes time for ratings to stick. Our ratings? If this hadn’t been on terrestrial TV, they wouldn’t even be half of this, probably not even a quarter. You know why we cast famous actors? To draw attention.”
“So you’re saying...”
“Ratings rise week by week. It depends on how well the word spreads, and on how broadly the work can appeal to households and viewers. And don’t we already meet all those conditions?”
This kind of thing depends heavily on your matchup.
And since I knew the future, that also meant I could predict the matchup in advance.
“Both are rom-coms. One’s a chaebol rom-com, the other a commoner rom-com.”
“Uh...”
“While they’re splitting the pie between themselves, what are we doing? A historical drama that people from kids to old folks all watch. And on top of that, we’ve mixed in noir and even a faint, barely-there romantic mood, making it a bit of a hodgepodge historical drama.”
I’d stacked popularity on popularity on popularity.
As long as we didn’t lose the long game here, I’d be the fool.
“All right, repeat after me.”
“Y-yes!”
“Next week’s ratings will be over 10 percent.”
“Next week’s ratings will be... huh!? Really!?”
“If they don’t, I’ll salt my own hands and eat them.”
I’d memorized this era’s standards for success until I was sick of them.
The dawn of smartphones. Television still hadn’t lost its power, and with social media adding to the mix, the force of viral momentum was at its peak.
I analyzed things, too.
Our external viral indicators were the strongest.
Especially since we weren’t limited to a specific age group or taste pool, but could attract a broad audience, the upward curve could only climb steeply.
I explained all of that to him.
Honestly, I didn’t even know why I was doing it, but if Min Byeongki’s mental state kept shaking until the final shoot, what else was I supposed to do?
“Do you understand the general idea?”
“Y-yes...! I misunderstood!”
“Yes, you did. So get back to work.”
“Yes! But you came all the way here just to say this...?”
“Yes. I made the trip here myself on your behalf.”
Min Byeongki’s eyes welled up again.
I had a feeling I’d be contaminated if I stayed any longer, so I quickly left his desk.
That was when I was leaving the building.
Ding!
A text message came in.
...
Why is she getting boiled now too?
I shook my head.
At this rate, once everyone saw the results, they’d all stop doing this nonsense anyway.
I was too tired to say any more.
I hit send.
Still, what a relief.
No need to worry about anything else.
Week one of Sword-Bound Gentleman.
Crossing over the cursed stretch from my previous life seemed easy enough, and messages like these—people worrying only about the drama’s performance—helped wipe away pointless anxiety.
Maybe that was enough.
As I lifted my head, it was still summer.
The sunlight was fierce.
I put a hand over my chest.
Ridiculously enough, even though I hadn’t accomplished anything yet, I felt more alive than I had at any other time.
More...
Please, let it go all the way to the end.
Let me know, with my own two hands, that what I’ve done will absolutely succeed.
With that thought, I kept walking.
Time passed again, and then it was week two.
* * *
Today, Korea’s second son, Kim Seongtaek, was unusually excited on his way home from work.
And it wasn’t for any complicated reason.
I finally get to watch episode 3!
He’d watched Episodes 1 and 2 and been left so hungry for more it almost made him sick, so over the weekend he’d even gone around changing channels just to catch every re-airing he could.
When was the last time he’d felt this kind of simple pleasure while watching something?
Come to think of it, he couldn’t remember anything from the past few years.
Was Sword-Bound Gentleman really that amazing?
By the time he’d reached Episode 2, Seongtaek wasn’t sure he’d go that far.
It was just...
There really hadn’t been anything worth watching in the first place.
When it came to dramas, it was always the same damn love story, the same damn money story.
He was seeing the same thing over and over again, and what’s more, Seongtaek didn’t even like those kinds of stories very much.
He wanted a show that could wash away the little stress of the day while still being fun.
A plain, ordinary work anyone could look at and say, “Yeah, that’s watchable,” or “Yeah, that’s fun.”
There simply hadn’t been anything like that.
To Seongtaek, the past few years had definitely felt like a long drought in dramas.
Sword-Bound Gentleman had arrived right in the middle of that dry spell.
And it wasn’t just Seongtaek who found it entertaining. When the weekend ended and the new week began, he heard people talking about it over lunch at work.
Mostly it was at the level of, “Ah, I heard the new one that just started is getting good reviews. I should check it out later,” but even that was enough to show how faithfully it had lived up to the idea of something “anyone can enjoy.”
Once he got home, Seongtaek would eat dinner, take a shower, and crack open a can of beer before bed to watch the drama.
For him, Sword-Bound Gentleman had become one of those small daily comforts.
Not something grand or extraordinary, just the sort of thing dramas were for most people living through the day.
Of course, he had no way of knowing that this had been the production team’s intention.
“I’m home!”
He opened the front door and came inside.
He had just been flipping the remote around, killing time until the drama started, when the hour finally rolled over to 10 p.m.
“Honey, you’re watching that drama again this week, right?”
“Yeah, of course. Why don’t you watch something else later on reruns?”
“Huh? No, I asked because I was planning to watch it too.”
“What? You’re watching it again tonight too?”
Even his two daughters, who had been locked away in their rooms, drifted out as drama time approached.
The family gathered above and below the living room sofa.
In the middle of that warm, homey atmosphere—
“Ah, here we go.”
Click.
Seongtaek popped open his beer.
And an hour later, he remembered a feeling he’d forgotten existed.
[I’m losing my mind, my love~]
“Hey! Who the hell cuts it off there!?”
“Ugh, who even wrote this? Such cruelty—I’ve never seen cruelty like this from a person.”
“I don’t know, I heard the writer’s never done a project before. Wow, how can someone be like that?”
Korea’s second son, Kim Seongtaek, and his family.
They’d fallen victim to the art of the cliffhanger again!
* * *
In the second week of the third quarter, it was just another week to some people, but in the drama world, it was different.
By now, it was becoming clear who was going to surge ahead this quarter, and who was going to fall behind.
And the storm of the quarter had quietly begun to lift its head.
“That Sword-Bound Gentleman episode 3 rating...”
“...9.4 percent? Didn’t that show have zero buzz keywords? I heard the cast and the writer were all rookies!”
The drama everyone had expected to lie flat at the bottom of the quarter had quietly risen up instead.
No, not just risen.
“Episode 4 pulled 10.7 percent?”
“It’s going up?”
What made the rival productions finally realize something was wrong was the end of week three’s broadcast.
“...17 percent. It closed this week at 17.6.”
“What in the—”
Sword-Bound Gentleman was climbing so steeply, each week stronger than the last.