The Fortune No One Asked For
The long table on the stage.
Five cast members of The Country Mouse sat in a row.
Truth be told, until ten minutes before they went up, the air backstage had been positively leaden. Lee Mishin hadn't missed the way Park Songhwa's breathing turned ragged as she stood waiting in line.
Without a word, he held out his open palm. Resting on it was a single chungshimhwan pill, the old herbal calmative.
"......This is that special thing again, isn't it?"
"It is. Very potent."
"......"
Park Songhwa took it with both hands, swallowed it in one gulp, and clenched her fists.
"It really works, right?"
"There is one clinical case on record. A fifteen-percent-rated one."
"......That's reassuring."
She glanced up suddenly.
"Today... you'll be watching from out there, won't you?"
"I'll stand where the view is best."
And with that, she took the stage — which brought them to now.
"All right, we'll open the floor for questions."
The moderator had barely finished before reporters' hands shot up like spring bamboo.
The early questions rolled by without incident. Where was the filming location? Was the self-sufficiency real? Was it true they were paid in rice instead of appearance fees?
"No rice — but eating only what we catch is true."
One of the actors cracked a joke, and laughter rippled through the room. Park Songhwa took the mic and fielded a question or two herself.
And then came the moment everyone had been waiting for.
"Yes, I'm with Sports Korea."
The reporter who'd claimed the prime spot at the photowall.
"This is for Park Songhwa. This is your second variety comeback since the gambling scandal, and critics say three months of self-reflection is far too short — that you're making a mockery of your viewers. What is your response?"
Click, click—
The shutters began firing before the question had even ended. Every camera lying in wait for the moment her composure cracked.
"......"
That day flickered past her eyes. The podium where she'd bowed her head. The white light that had flooded in so bright it swallowed her feet.
'I have to pull myself together.'
But her heart paid her resolve no mind and started hammering, and the edges of her vision began closing in, little by little. She suddenly couldn't remember how breathing worked.
Then — at the far rim of her narrowing field of view, a long-haired man came into frame.
The very back of the hall. A suited figure with long hair, leaning against the wall.
"......"
"......"
Their eyes met.
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because I saw it."
His voice layered itself over her memory.
'......Right. He said he saw it.'
Her — smiling, head held high, in front of all those cameras.
Park Songhwa drew the microphone closer.
"I think... the criticism that it's too soon is a fair one."
The hall went quiet.
"What I did wrong doesn't become undone just because time passes. The stinging stares are my share to bear — and I believe enduring them is part of my comeback, too."
Clear, measured. Her eyes were locked straight on the reporter who'd asked, a smile resting at the corners of her mouth.
"......"
The reporter lifted his gaze from the viewfinder. He had come to shoot a face in ruins, and there wasn't a crack in sight.
Just then, the senior actor beside her snatched the mic.
"Allow me one word, as her castmate. This girl worked herself to the bone the entire shoot. You know fishing bait — worms? She threaded them on with her own two hands, I'm telling you."
"Oooh......"
"What celebrity does that with their bare hands? Me? I made my manager do it."
Park Songhwa waved her hands in protest.
"No, no, that was only because of the gochujang—"
"The gochujang?"
"......Ah — just watch the premiere!"
A few more harmless questions came and went, and then the mic swung back toward sensitive ground.
"I simply can't skip the manager who appeared beside you at the photowall. Is it true that a shaman works as your manager?"
Several cameras wheeled around to the back of the hall as if they'd been waiting for exactly this. The long-haired manager didn't so much as blink, and his composure drew thin, uncertain laughs from the press seats.
"Yes, that's him."
A murmur swept the room.
"He's the one who pinpointed, exactly, the most shameful episode of my life. Now he's standing right beside me — how do you think that feels?"
"Wh... what does it feel like?"
"Reassuring."
Fingers flew across laptops. Headlines were being extracted in real time.
"These days I ask him for a reading every single day. That he please only see good things."
The hall burst out laughing. Seizing the opening, the senior actor grabbed the mic again.
"He was the most popular man on set. The village elders kept lining up for him — asking when our cow was going to calve, that sort of thing."
The laughter doubled.
"All right, something lighter now! If there's a moment from filming that stuck with you the most —?"
The cast's reactions turned strange. One actor clicked his tongue; another let out a low whistle.
"Ah, that."
Park Songhwa smiled, meaning written all over it.
"I would love to tell you... but I'll hold my tongue. Episode one — please watch it live."
"Could you give us just a tiny hint?"
"Hmm... let's say — everyone screamed at the reservoir. That much?"
The reporters stirred. The reservoir?
"And finally — do you have plans for a comeback as a singer?"
"......"
She was running a secret project with Mishin, but not a single thing about it was settled. No ordinary song, either — the title was All In, and the genre was a dance track. The A&R team and the CEO were never going to sign off easily.
'But......'
But Mishin had said, without hesitation, that he'd seen her standing on a stage.
She decided to believe it this time, too.
"Nothing is confirmed yet, but there is one thing in the works."
"......"
"Feel free to look forward to it."
After the event, on the way back to the waiting room, Park Songhwa let out one long, slow breath as she walked.
'......I did it.'
The sound of clicking shutters was still terrifying. It probably would be for a long while yet.
Even so — today, she hadn't run. She hadn't bowed her head, either.
'I'd love it if next time I could do this much all on my own.'
The moment she spotted the long-haired figure waiting at the end of the corridor, her steps quickened on their own.
"How was I?"
"Exactly as I saw."
Park Songhwa broke into a grin and strode on ahead, his footsteps following one beat behind her.
That evening, the articles and the community boards lit up in tandem.
The rough cut of The Country Mouse episode one was deep into its third night.
The editing director rolled his mouse, then let go at one particular point.
"Wow. This one — no matter how many times I watch it......"
The assistant dozing beside him jolted awake.
On the screen, a long-haired figure silhouetted against the sunset was rising out of the water. A moment later, his soaked hair swept back and droplets scattered through the air.
"This isn't staged, right? Not a body double, not wires?"
"How many times do I have to say it. It's real. I was on that set."
The editing director pressed a hand to his brow.
"......I've never seen a frame like this in variety television."
He scrubbed the clip back and forth. Sliding rubber boots. An arm reaching out. A column of thrown water. And the wet, long-haired figure turning against the burning sky.
"No background music here."
"What? This is the highlight!"
"Just the water sound and the silence. And then......"
The editing director hit the spacebar.
Shock bloomed across the assistant's face.
"......It becomes a film."
"Exactly. Doesn't even need color grading — the sunset did all the work."
Just then the door opened and the show's PD walked in.
"How far along are we?"
"The reservoir, sir. You've been stuck on this spot for hours."
The PD passed out energy drinks from a plastic bag.
"Oh, right — Director Yang. I have one favor to ask."
"What is it?"
"Park Songhwa's footage. Take good care of it."
The editing director glanced over.
"Was planning to anyway. You saw her threading that worm on herself? What celebrity actually does that these days?"
"Keep that as one unbroken cut. Don't split it. So the viewers can't cry 'fakery.'"
"Okay."
"And don't cut on the crying or the poor-me act. Cut on her seeing it through to the end. So...... do it the good way. Nice and clean, you know how. Got it?"
The good way.
Even as the words left his mouth, the PD found himself back at that evening by the reservoir.
"Please take good care of Park Songhwa's footage."
"......"
"For the better."
The man had set the condition with a casual air, tying back his wet hair.
'......Well. A promise is a promise.'
The editing director gave him a puzzled look.
"Never known you to do this kind of thing. Fine, I hear you. And since we're on the subject — if anything comes to mind for the teaser, say the word."
"Park Songhwa threading the worm on. That'll be enough."
The editing director smirked and took hold of the mouse again.
Thanks to my manager duties for Park Songhwa, I found myself back at the office for the first time in ages since The Country Mouse shoot wrapped.
"......?"
Something was off about my desk.
A whole box of sipjeondaebotang, the warming herbal tonic. Two packs of ginger tea sticks. A jar of citron marmalade. And a bottle of black goat extract of unknown origin.
'......Is this because they heard I fell into a reservoir?'
"You're here?! Have you been to the hospital?"
The assistant manager at the next desk sprang to her feet.
"I'm perfectly fine."
"Still, you don't know how cold reservoir water is...... Here — the black goat extract is from my hometown. My father brewed it himself."
"......"
If refusal worked in this office, my desk wouldn't have ended up in this state to begin with.
"But is it true? That you trained beneath a waterfall during the Country Mouse shoot......"
"......"
How on earth had the rumor mutated into that?
Even amid all this, the pilgrims from other departments kept steadily making their rounds to Division 2's water purifier.
"Are you fully recovered?"
"I was never ill."
"Wishing you robust health."
"......"
People I couldn't tell had come for water or to pay their respects bowed politely and filed past. At some point, this desk had come to be treated as a shrine.
"Mishin. Or should I be calling you the Mountain Spirit now?"
Team Leader Gu smirked.
"The PR team is a house of feasting right now. They'd drafted three versions of the press release before the show even aired. Look at this."
Headline candidates glowed on his phone screen.
"Number three is a bit unsettling. It reads like I've passed on."
"My point exactly. Whoever wrote number three is due for a disciplinary write-up. Anyway — let's get eel for lunch. Nothing chases cold energy out of the body like eel."
A short while later, at the eel restaurant, Gu Wonho laid a generous portion onto my plate and lowered his voice.
"And this one's strictly confidential."
"What would that be?"
"Your name's going around the top floors these days. Promotion talk."
"......I've been here all of a few months."
"I know! Took me six years to make team leader. Six!"
He drew a furious 6 in the air with his chopsticks, then his expression turned serious.
"But look, between us...... you cracked Director Choi's project wide open, you blew our hospital show up into a hit, you turned two of Songhwa's dead ad deals around, and now you've gone and saved Songhwa herself."
"I didn't save anyone...... but thank you for seeing it so kindly."
"But Mishin — what happens to me then?"
"To you? In what way?"
"If you get promoted."
"You can treat me exactly as you do now."
"Oh, you mean it? Should've recorded that."
The waterfall training, and now this — both were clearly empty rumors, so I didn't give the promotion talk much serious thought.
"By the way, what is it you do at night? You've got shadows under your eyes — you seem like the type who's up to something after dark."
"I have a hobby."
"A shaman's hobby...... don't tell me you run a YouTube channel? Taking money for fortune readings, that kind of thing?"
"I don't."
"Good. That would've been genuinely terrifying."
I wasn't anywhere near the right answer, but I saw no need to correct him. The true identity of that hobby was, even at this very moment, growing fat inside my laptop day by day — and before long, the entire company would learn exactly what it was.
The conference room of Management Division 1, home to the actors. Two lines were written on the whiteboard.
One — a seasonal drama for a global platform.
Two — Director Jeong Dusik's new film.
"We're going with the film."
The declaration came from Ju Gyeongseok, head of Division 1.
Their flagship actor's next project had been hanging in limbo for months, and the long weighing between the major platform's seasonal drama and the Chungmuro master's new film had finally come to an end. The actor himself had already been leaning toward the film.
"Contract signing tomorrow, ten in the morning, at the production company."
"And the platform side?"
"I'm going out right now to call them. With these things, the longer you sit on it, the ruder it becomes."
"They've waited months, too. Will they take it well?"
"All the more reason to close it out cleanly. They've already hinted more than once that if we don't answer soon, they'll move on to another actor. Said they already have someone lined up."
"Then the moment you call today, they'll start that other actor's contract."
"Well — a shame, but what can you do. A man's only got one body."
Ju Gyeongseok gathered his documents and rose from his seat. With a month-old homework finally done, his steps felt unusually light. This one contract would be half of Division 1's harvest for the year.
'Straight there, no detours.'
He was just about to dial the drama production company when he spotted a familiar long-haired figure walking up the far end of the corridor.
"......"
Only recently, the man had carried over an entire box of jujube extract to make a request and been cut off with a single word. Since then, every corridor encounter had been a curt nod and a passing stride.
Ju Gyeongseok assumed today would be the same.
"I recommend you change that decision."
"......What?"
He doubted his own ears. The decision had been fixed in that meeting room minutes ago — the door had been closed less than five minutes. There had been no time for a word to leak.
"What...... did you just say?"
"I'm saying you should go with the drama."
The face before him was so utterly composed that his anger arrived a full beat late.
"Ha. Unbelievable."
A incredulous laugh came out before the anger could.
"Mishin-ssi. When I came carrying jujube extract and all but begged, you cut me off in one word. And now you're handing out a reading nobody asked for?"
"If it were a reading, I would have collected a fee for it."
The long hair didn't so much as flicker.
"I'm saying this precisely because it isn't worth a fee."
"......What on earth are you talking about?"
"Director Jeong Dusik. A scandal is about to break."
The air in the corridor sank.
"Scandal? What scandal?"
"The crime is dirty. The sexual kind."
The amusement drained from Ju Gyeongseok's face.
"Sign that film, and you lose the drama."
"......!"
Those were the exact words his staffer had just uttered — that the drama would slip away. A chill ran down his spine.
'Pull yourself together.'
These were the words of a shaman. No basis, no source, no proof.
'......And yet.'
The Park Songhwa affair had been the same. Not even a tabloid had caught wind of it. It had never snagged on a single net the industry could cast — this man alone had spoken it on a broadcast, and it had come to pass, exactly.
Ju Gyeongseok swallowed dryly.
He wasn't believing. He absolutely was not believing — and yet the calculation laid itself out before him, neat and cold. The seal for tomorrow at ten had not yet been pressed. The drama company's number glowed on his phone, but the call had not been made.
To be precise...... he had been about to dial it this very moment.
"......So this scandal of yours — when exactly does it break?"
The long-haired shaman looked down at his wristwatch.
Then he raised his head and answered, expressionless:
"Tonight."