The Drama That Shouldn't Exist
The moment CEO Lee Juyeon handed over her phone, Screenwriter Choi Yu-jin began watching the film.
The title of the short film was Dream.
Long before the movie started playing, every shred of her attention had already been locked onto it.
And no wonder. Two seventeen-year-olds had supposedly filmed the final performance of the maestro Gam I-hyun. That would have been enormous news in the industry — yet somehow it had never reached her ears, despite how loudly she had wailed at Gam I-hyun's funeral. She caught herself wondering whether she had really been in hiding that long.
Choi Yu-jin never once looked away, never let a single other thought intrude, and watched the film from beginning to end.
Gam I-hyun was magnificent.
That razor-sharp energy. She thought that if she had been of his generation, she would without question have written a role for that actor as her male lead at least once in her life.
But on the opposite side of that razor-sharp energy flowed a boy like water.
It goes without saying that white and transparency are not the same thing. White can be painted over with anything; transparency can be painted over with nothing.
Water so utterly clear that its depth could not be fathomed. A boy whose bottom you could see straight through — and yet you had no idea where that bottom actually lay.
A boy who could become a god or a devil.
Who could become a religious leader or a soldier.
That kind of actor.
When the twelve-minute short film ended, Choi Yu-jin spoke to CEO Lee Juyeon.
"Contact this actor. Right now. As fast as humanly possible."
"I told you to take the calls in the first place… This film's been circulating the industry for a while now, so his schedule might already be full."
"Lee Juyeon, who exactly do you think I am?"
"Ah, right — you're Choi Yu-jin. Okay, I'll call him this second."
The CEO stood up on the spot and dialed, while Choi Yu-jin stayed in her seat, watching Lee Heeyoon on the screen one more time through her own phone. Then she called out after her.
"CEO Lee! Tell them if there's a penalty fee, I'll pay it myself!"
CEO Lee Juyeon gave an okay sign with her fingers.
Woo Woongbae's short film Dream became a bigger topic of conversation than anyone expected.
The video he'd uploaded to YouTube passed one hundred thousand views within two days, and the number kept climbing steadily after that. For a short film, it was a remarkable response.
On top of that, I heard that among industry insiders, the last film of Gam I-hyun had become quite the sensation in its own right. Our agency had rowed hard behind it, too. Thanks to that, a fair number of casting offers came flooding into the company. An advertisement for a workbook-study program, promotional videos for singers — for the most part, it was all just an extension of the work I'd done back in my child-actor days.
But nothing that could properly be called a script had come in yet.
Which was unavoidable. I was still too young even for a school-drama. I could just about pass for a web drama lead, but the company didn't like any of the projects on the table, so we agreed to wait a little longer. I felt the same way.
The search for the Secluded One was on hold for the moment. Both Woo Woongbae and I agreed that, as things stood, finding him was simply impossible.
"It's like quantum mechanics, see. Until it's observed, you can't confirm whether it exists or not. But you can't observe it — so as far as you're concerned, it might as well not exist at all."
Not that I had the faintest idea what Woo Woongbae was actually saying.
And every time we did try to search for the Secluded One, my health deteriorated so badly that I couldn't risk another attempt. At this rate I'd be dead before I turned thirty-two.
Woo Woongbae said that whatever this 'thing' I was looking for was, it would have no choice but to show its face eventually.
"And when exactly would that be?"
When I asked, Woo Woongbae replied without missing a beat.
"The day you meet it on set as your scene partner."
"Why would it reveal itself then?"
"Because that's the moment when the actor disappears, and only a single role — a single character — exists."
It sounded plausible enough, so I went along with it.
It honestly astonished me how generously Woo Woongbae accepted the fact that there was one human being I simply could not recognize. He then declared that this was precisely why I needed to read manga. He claimed tolerance and understanding of the world could be found there.
Woo Woongbae said he was working on a way for me to recognize that being. Thankfully, he looked insanely happy about it. He'd been a little deflated after finishing the short film, so it was a relief that something had captured his focus again.
The day CEO Gam Seongbeom came to my school was some afternoon in autumn, right in the middle of lunch.
When he barked at me to come out immediately, I followed him out of school and got into the car. Do Jaeyeon and VP Gam Soohan were already inside — dressed, bizarrely, in absolutely formal attire.
Those two were one thing, but seeing CEO Gam Seongbeom in a plain, ordinary suit instead of his usual loud printed T-shirts was downright unsettling.
"Did you lose money somewhere?"
When I asked, Do Jaeyeon — the one person who understood the company's finances best — shot back without hesitation.
"I wish we had money worth embezzling. This company is a beggar. An actual beggar."
"Normally I'd say no to that, but yeah. We're beggars."
Even CEO Gam Seongbeom nodded along in agreement. Then, as he drove, he muttered to himself.
"And it's for us beggars that this is now a life-or-death moment, Heeyoon."
"Why does this life-or-death moment have to be my problem?"
"Exactly! It's riding on your shoulders!"
"Then you need to explain what's actually going on."
"Sorry. I was told to bring you in as untouched by information as possible."
While I was grumbling in irritation about what that was even supposed to mean, CEO Gam Seongbeom spoke with grave resolve.
"Heeyoon, listen carefully."
"I'm already listening."
"……Anyway."
"Ugh, just spit it out."
"Screenwriter Choi Yu-jin wants to call-cast you."
Choi Yu-jin.
At those three syllables, I froze.
And then I immediately shut my mouth and sat obediently for the rest of the ride.
If you asked me which writer I wanted to work with most in the world, I wouldn't need a moment's deliberation: Screenwriter Choi Yu-jin.
She had churned out hit drama after hit drama, and among them was the drama that had defined an entire year.
Looking back on a year and being able to call it "the year of such-and-such drama" is the stuff of dreams. Such dramas don't even exist every year.
An ordinary blockbuster might be luck, but the best drama of a given year is something destiny creates. No PD, no production company, and no writer can will one into existence just because they want it.
Even so, certain PDs, production companies, and writers undeniably possess the power to produce dramas that approach destiny itself — ones that achieve massive, era-defining hits.
That power belonged to Screenwriter Choi Yu-jin.
"Please, please don't be rude in there. Greet everyone properly. Got it?"
"Keep your hands out of your pockets, or I'll chop those wrists right off."
CEO Gam Seongbeom and Do Jaeyeon took turns nagging me. VP Gam Soohan, startled by the wrist-chopping, reflexively covered my ears. By now, I was well used to this trio.
And so we stepped into Cheongcheon Studio.
The people of Cheongcheon Studio — including CEO Lee Juyeon and Screenwriter Choi Yu-jin — and the three from Leader Actors, and I, all sat around chatting in a warmly convivial atmosphere.
So convivial, in fact, that I wondered if this could really be a business meeting. Presumably because I was a minor, they were keeping things deliberately light.
But when CEO Lee Juyeon got around to describing the drama they wanted to cast me in, the mood turned something like flustered chaos.
"So, um…… the formal proposal isn't out yet. Whew, well, our actor Heeyoon is such a hot topic right now, you know? We wanted to snap him up before anyone else hooked him. Anyway! What we're making is, you know how there are all those vampire movies? Ah, tons of those were huge hits, right? Overseas."
Normally, when a pitch opens this uncertainly, actor representatives start to tense up and think, There's a catch in here somewhere.
Normally, that is.
But the person across the table was Screenwriter Choi Yu-jin. No matter how absurd the preamble got, everyone listened with rapt attention.
"So this drama is, how should I put it. Of course, our writer here…… you all know her, right? She's not the type to stir up controversy or anything. So yes, it's technically about religious conflict, but we're going to conceal that absolutely perfectly. You have nothing to worry about."
Wow…….
Even for me — someone who adores Choi Yu-jin — this was way too……
If even I flinched at CEO Lee Juyeon's explanation, it went without saying that the Leader Actors trio were rolling their eyes in open bewilderment.
A vampire from outer space battling Earth's vampires was absurd enough, but apparently the reason they fought was religious conflict. Was any of this supposed to make sense?
And yet, something was off.
Before my regression, I had watched every single drama Screenwriter Choi Yu-jin ever made. Not one skipped. I'd rewatched some of them three times over.
But in my memory, there was no drama with content this ridiculous — the kind of synopsis you could hear once and never, ever forget.
Which meant either this synopsis was never produced.
Or else.
'It was changed beyond all recognition.'
Slowly, I began retracing my memories of every Choi Yu-jin drama I had ever seen, one by one. If a drama was announced when I was seventeen in this life, it would be one from nearly twenty years before my death. It would be no surprise if my memory of it had grown hazy.
I was working backward from her most recent drama when I abruptly shot up out of my seat.
"Oh!"
At that, everyone in the conference room turned to stare at me.
There was no helping it.
They changed the setting that much?
No — and they're pitching it like this?
While I was reeling from the shock, Do Jaeyeon hurried to cover for me.
"He collapsed not long ago, you see. He hasn't fully recovered, so he does this sometimes."
It had been months since the collapse, but Do Jaeyeon wrapped my behavior in the best excuse she could muster. And I, looking straight at Screenwriter Choi Yu-jin, said:
"I want to do it. I want to be in it. Any role at all — please, just let me be in it."
In response to my fervent reaction, Screenwriter Choi Yu-jin — who had been scanning my profile lying on the table — gave a small nod. Then she picked up my profile, rose to her feet, and told CEO Lee Juyeon:
"He's in, CEO. Then I'll get back to work."
With that, she shook hands with all three from Leader Actors and left the room.
The trio's eyes turned to me.
The look said: are you insane?
And right on cue — exactly as I'd expected — the Demon spoke up again.
[Well, well. What's gotten into you?]
Ugh, there it goes again.
After letting the Demon's usual nonsense wash right past me — I was long since used to it — the purified text finally came into view.
[With this choice]
[The acceleration of Downfall of Leader Actors will now halt]
[Downfall of Leader Actors will proceed at its original pace]
Just as I thought.
I could swear to it. And I could be certain of it.
This drama was going to be a monster hit. Thirty-five million views on the OTT platform in its release year — and an influence on South Korea that no number could ever capture.
It was, in name and in fact, the drama of 2027.
