The Door to His Other World
Woo Woongbae knew it himself. He knew his scenario was hard to follow.
It wasn't just Lee Heeyoon—even his own parents couldn't manage to call it entertaining, even as empty flattery. So instead, they'd said this:
'Our son has talent!'
The poor souls had strained themselves trying to find something, anything, to praise about their boy's snooze-fest of a script. They'd dressed up its obscurity as proof that they were simply too ignorant about film to grasp "true art."
And then there was Ki I-an, who had somehow ended up cast as the lead. Of all people, he was the type who avoided saying anything unpleasant whenever he could manage it.
'It might actually be fun to shoot. If you shoot it in a way that's fun, that is.'
That was how he'd put it.
"Rewrite it from scratch. This doesn't work."
Lee Heeyoon, by contrast, had said exactly that.
In truth, Woo Woongbae had sensed it before he ever showed Lee Heeyoon the script. He'd known this was what he would say. And he knew better than anyone that Lee Heeyoon was usually right—especially when it came to acting.
Even so, pride had made him deny it.
"I do have a direction in mind. I'll fix it."
"That's a waste of time. Rewrite it."
"The whole point of getting rich is turning a bad asset into a good one."
"And the whole point of doing that wrong is sinking straight into sunk costs."
Lee Heeyoon set the bound screenplay down on the floor with a flat slap.
"This can't be shot."
"I know more about filming than you do. What would you know?"
It was one of the rare moments in Woo Woongbae's life where he'd openly bared his teeth. Lee Heeyoon didn't even register it as aggression.
"You said it yourself, the first day we met. You were going to do commercial films. Not arthouse—movies. Movies that pull in audiences. So how does a film nobody understands pull in a crowd?"
"Other people might get it."
"Yeah? Then answer me this."
Lee Heeyoon fired off a few questions about the script he'd just read.
He understood the screenplay more precisely than anyone Woo Woongbae had ever shown it to, and every answer was exact. Not a single miss. His expression didn't flicker once as he continued.
"So before, you wrote things that made sense because I was writing them with you?"
"......Yeah."
"Why?"
"......Because it has to be universally understandable. Actor Gam was sick back then. I figured I needed to write a story like a fairy tale—something anyone could grasp at a glance."
"And why didn't it work this time?"
The moment the question landed, a clear answer surfaced in Woo Woongbae's head.
"......Because I wasn't writing it to show anyone."
He looked at the script Lee Heeyoon had set down.
It hit him that this hadn't been a casual skim. Lee Heeyoon had genuinely tried to understand it—had marked up the margins, page after page, until the bound volume was black with notes.
And even then, he hadn't understood it. That was the thing. As an industry man, as someone who had put in that much effort and still couldn't follow the story—that was why he'd told him to throw it out.
Lee Heeyoon picked the bound script back up.
"When I was young...... I mean, back in the day, I used to think the best work was one with no flaws."
"......"
"Turns out that's wrong. The best work is the one whose strengths burn bright."
Woo Woongbae felt something ignite in his head at those words.
A work without flaws, versus a work with blazing strengths.
A film where the directing is solid, the acting is solid, the script is solid.
Or a film where only the cinematography goes down in history, where only the acting touches the divine, where only the script is insane in its brilliance.
Which one shines harder? Which one pulls people in?
No—honestly, what other people thought didn't matter. Woo Woongbae thought by his own yardstick. Which kind of film was the one he loved?
He snatched the bound script out of Lee Heeyoon's hands.
"Confiscated."
"No."
"Why not?"
"So I can hold it over your head when you go pro."
"Ugh."
Woo Woongbae stared at the screenplay he'd been clinging to for over two years. Then he sighed and sprawled it out on the wooden porch floor.
"Ah. The script I invested one-ninth of my life into."
"Shooting it would burn another year."
"It was fun when I first imagined it, my android. Maybe SF just doesn't work in Korea after all."
"Don't blame the genre. You just can't write."
Woo Woongbae heaved a deep sigh at that. Then he quietly let something slip.
"Honestly...... there is one more. Only I never wrote it to shoot it."
"What's it about?"
Woo Woongbae described the SF scenario he'd been carrying around in his head.
It was a story of war set against the vastness of space.
He didn't think it had to be space, necessarily. It could be medieval fantasy. It could be transplanted into the modern day.
'......Still, space would be better.'
Drawing a visible line across that boundless void. A story of war waged across the entire universe.
He'd been chattering away, high on his own imaginings, when he noticed that Lee Heeyoon's expression hadn't changed once the entire time—and he hit the brakes.
"Pretty funny, right? Hey, shooting this would cost a solid billion dollars, easy."
"......"
"Anyway. Yeah. It's just...... a story, that's all."
He was trying to laugh it off when he realized Lee Heeyoon's eyes were still fixed on him.
Truthfully, Lee Heeyoon's face still unsettled him a little. Handsome was one thing, but this was past the limit. How far past? Far enough that ordinary people were starting to look beautiful by comparison. Lee Heeyoon was, after all, the best-looking man alive—so anyone who merely shared his species should be plenty beautiful just by existing.
It remained a mystery to Woo Woongbae. That this face had appeared on screen so, so little. The tragedy of the human race, living and dying knowing only half of Lee Heeyoon's face.
Woo Woongbae asked, uncomfortable under the gaze.
"Why are you staring at me like that?"
"What role am I getting?"
"I told you, this costs a billion dollars."
"Then we shoot it in Hollywood. So what role am I getting?"
"You...... there's already a character modeled on you."
"Oh. There is? Then we're good."
Woo Woongbae had never seen Lee Heeyoon look like this.
His eyes were glowing.
And that look conveyed something like certainty to Woo Woongbae.
It said: this is a scenario that's actually fun.
"Hey. Heeyoon-ah."
"Yeah."
"Is this story actually fun?"
"Here's what I know for sure."
"Yeah?"
"It's the most entertaining SF scenario I've read in my entire life."
The praise startled him first—that Lee Heeyoon was even capable of it. Then his heart started pounding.
Ever since he'd first understood what a film was, Woo Woongbae had been building this world.
For a boy prone to slipping into daydreams at the drop of a hat, it had been his private playground, his personal cinema, another world as real and reachable as any place—entered by stepping across dimensions.
For the first time in this life, Woo Woongbae had opened that other world to someone else. It wasn't because Lee Heeyoon was a great actor. It was because he was his closest friend—so Woo Woongbae had unlocked the door to this daydream world, one he'd never even shown his own parents.
And Lee Heeyoon, stepping into it, wore the expression of a kid who'd just been invited into the most fun playground on earth.
"Make that one."
"I keep telling you, it costs a billion dollars."
"Shut up and build it anyway. A billion-dollar world, however you have to do it."
And yet, strangely, the friend who'd stepped into his playground didn't look purely happy.
It was an expression Woo Woongbae had seen somewhere before.
He turned it over in his memory until it came to him: the time they'd shot the short film with Actor Gam I-hyun. It was the expression Gam I-hyun used to wear when he looked at Lee Heeyoon.
'There will be so many wonderful films, plays, and dramas to come—and I won't get to see any of them. I'll never get to do that kind of acting. I'm so envious of you, that you can.'
Woo Woongbae remembered the actor saying that. That was the expression from back then.
Clearly, Lee Heeyoon was making that face because he'd decided it was realistically impossible for this vast scenario to ever become a film. The story was simply too big. Not long, not deep—big.
Woo Woongbae thought for a moment, then spoke.
"Hey. Let me use your desk."
"For what?"
"Writing. Something that can be shot cheaply, in this universe of mine."
At that, Lee Heeyoon led Woo Woongbae to the desk in Gam I-hyun's old study—the one Lee Heeyoon himself had taken to sitting at whenever he read scripts these days.
The moment he sat down at the desk, with its scent of fine old wood, ambition came surging up out of nowhere. Woo Woongbae closed the study door and called Ki I-an, the lead actor he'd promised.
He says he's rewriting it now, and Ki I-an lit up without even asking why. Actor to the bone—every emotion came straight through his voice. In that moment, Woo Woongbae's trust in his lead actor came bubbling up.
Woo Woongbae spoke.
"I'm sorry."
"For what? Because you had me read it instead of Lee Heeyoon? You worried I'd think I was the chicken standing in for the pheasant?"
"It's not that."
"Then what?"
"Just. For making you memorize a script that was no fun."
"It wasn't no fun. I just didn't understand it."
"This time I'll write something you can understand, no question, and show you again. The lead has to be you. Nobody else."
Ki I-an went quiet for a beat at that, then said:
"Lee Heeyoon told you to scrap it, didn't he?"
"How'd you know?"
"Just a feeling. There aren't many bastards in this world who can say that stuff—the kind of bastard who needs to say it."
"Right. No way my network has two of those guys in it......"
"I'm counting on you."
"Very well. Heap the burden upon me as you see fit."
After hearing his lead actor's relieved voice, Woo Woongbae began writing the new scenario. Strangely, the words poured out as if his fingers already knew the way.
Because this was a world that already existed—merely hidden—and the work now was to show it to as many people as he possibly could.
He wanted to explain that world kindly, clearly, beautifully.
Because he loved it. And because he loved it, he hoped other people would love it too.
The year he turned thirty-seven.
Director Woo Woongbae's first film premiered.
Nobody had thought it would flop, but not many had predicted it would do this well either. With a single film, Director Woo Woongbae became a new god of the SF genre.
"Director. Have you heard? They're saying Lee Heeyoon is dead."
That was the day Lee Heeyoon died. In a café in California, Director Woo Woongbae had been drafting the proposal for his next film when the call came.
He set the proposal window aside for a moment and searched Lee Heeyoon's name.
For a long while, he stared at the headline of the article announcing Lee Heeyoon's death. Then he opened the proposal again.
And he deleted Lee Heeyoon's name from the "desired actor" field. He paused once with every character he erased. No other name came to mind.