A Hundred-Year-Old Tiger
After the fan meeting ended and I came home, one thing became crystal clear to me.
I am an attention addict. I suffer from a disease that kills me when I don't get noticed. And seeing all those fans had made the illness flare up without warning.
Just as Team Leader Do Jaeyeon said, I really was born to be an entertainer. There was no way around it.
The only cure I knew for this loneliness, this hollow emptiness, was reading scripts. Since I'd be heading back to school and planned to focus on my studies until the end of the year, I settled onto the sofa in front of the TV where I was always sprawled. The people at Leader Actors knew that the moment I got home, that was where I'd be sitting or lying down for most of the day — so they'd stacked the scripts I needed to read on the coffee table in front of it.
Three scripts sat on that coffee table, chosen after the CEO, the VP, and the Team 1 leader had racked their brains over and over. Two were film screenplays. One was a drama script.
It was the drama script that stopped me cold. Because it was Youth's Reading List — the romantic comedy from the very band I'd been playing piano for.
I was stunned that this thing had even existed as a script two years ago. I picked it up and hesitated.
It hadn't done well. I remembered it never once breaking past 3% viewership from its first episode to its last. I'd thought the script was fun, but apparently the audience hadn't agreed.
And yet, knowing full well it would flop, here I was holding it in my hands — because I still remembered that this was when I'd gained my first fans.
Granted, the low ratings weren't entirely the show's fault. The network's Monday-Tuesday drama slot had been in a slump for ages, and honestly, the actors' performances hadn't helped.
Me, and Yoo Eunsu — my same-age co-star — and then…
“Ah. Han Dohyun.”
Han Dohyun, whom Moby Dick Entertainment had slotted straight into the second male lead without a second thought.
He wasn't exactly a brilliant actor, so I'd put him through ten hours of script readings, made an enemy of him, and… after that, the set's poisoned atmosphere became so routine it felt normal.
As it turned out, this drama had apparently never gotten made in those two years. Then I said I'd do it, and Moby Dick decided it was the perfect vehicle for Han Dohyun — and that was how Youth's Reading List finally happened.
“Hmm…”
Would any idiot choose a drama he knows is destined to tank?
Not just any idiot, either — one who already wrecked it once before his regression, and who's now about to walk right back down that road on his own two feet.
“……Hmm.”
There's no such fool in this world.
“Hmmm…”
Ugh, damn it. But why is it fun every time I read it?
Could it be. Am I that fool?
[Yes]
[Just go for it already]
They don't call it the devil's whisper for nothing. It's egging me toward my own downfall. I shoved the script aside and picked up the two screenplays instead.
One came with an offer attached; the other required an audition. I read them both. Both were entertaining — with big strengths and equally big flaws.
I decided against the one with the offer. The character overlapped too much with Mun Geowool.
It wasn't that I was deliberately avoiding the type — but if the roles were too similar, I figured viewers would either get bored or feel a strange, nagging discomfort.
That left two options: Typhoon, the screenplay that needed an audition, and Youth's Reading List.
Typhoon was a film by a director who'd left his mark at a prestigious festival. Reading the script, I realized it was a movie I'd loved. Whenever it rained through the night, that was the film I'd put on. Again and again.
Maybe that was why it felt so strange — the idea of me stepping into that movie I adored, not as some actor I knew, but as myself.
In the end, I picked up the failed drama script again.
“……Hmm.”
It terrified me that I might turn into that fool who walks himself straight down the road to ruin.
[Not sure if this helps with your decision]
[Even if you choose that one]
[I won't be any more shocked that you're an idiot]
[You never exactly looked clever to begin with!]
If that thing had a body, I'd love to deck it. Stupid demon.
And annoyingly, I couldn't say it was wrong.
My mind was already made up, but I told them I'd sit with it a few more days. When VP Gam Soohan found out the drama I was deliberating over was Youth's Reading List, his entire face lit up, working every muscle it had to contain his delight.
“That one's fun, isn't it?”
The moment I saw that expression, I remembered why I'd chosen it in my past life. Because Gam Soohan loved it. Of course I'd decided to do it because I genuinely enjoyed the script too, but his enthusiasm had weighed heavily on the choice.
The VP adored this drama. About three years from now it would drop on an OTT platform, and he'd rewatch it on a regular cycle. When I once asked him why he loved it so much back then, this was what he'd said:
'Because it lets me see so many expressions from Heeyoon that I never get to see otherwise.'
In that drama, I made a fool of myself constantly — goofy faces, bursts of hysterical laughter, full-on sobbing.
'It feels like you're living the youth I never got to give you, even if it's only on screen.'
Oh, for God's sake. Fine, I'll do it, you ruined show of a dra—
His face brimming with a flutter of excitement anyone could read, the VP asked, “How much time do you need? I'll pass it along to the production company.”
“I decided just now. I'll do it. That one.”
“You will? You don't want to think about it more?”
“I thought about it, and there's nothing I'd rather do.”
I kept my face blank and indifferent, but inside, I was heaving sigh after sigh.
Right, like it matters. There's an actor in the team next door pulling in one-percent ratings on a network drama back to back — what's one two-percent drama between friends?
So I decided to do Youth's Reading List.
Besides, I was the one who'd left an unmistakable mark on weekend-drama audiences. If I said yes, the odds of this drama actually getting made would shoot way up. And if it still got pushed back two years… well. I'd just have to audition for the movie then.
With that thought, I headed off to school.
Studio Flat — the production company behind Youth's Reading List.
They specialized in music-driven dramas, so the script for a band-centered story like this one had naturally made its way to them.
Youth's Reading List had originally been one of the entries in a screenwriting competition hosted by a paid broadcast channel owned by a major conglomerate. It had failed to win, but its strengths — above all, how smoothly it read — were enough for Studio Flat to pick it up.
There are all kinds of scripts in the world, and among them exists a special breed: the script that's easy to read.
“Scripts like this… actors have a hell of a time bringing them to life, let me tell you.”
That was the worry gnawing at Shim Dongwook, CEO of Studio Flat.
An easy read was never the same thing as easy to act. If anything, those lines that flowed like water tended to leave audiences cold.
Youth's Reading List was a textbook example of a script carrying exactly that danger.
Which was why the seasoned actors who'd seen it had all quietly declined. Understandable, really.
“Handled right, it could really work. Problem is, I have no idea what 'handled right' means.”
Nearly twenty years in production, and still, every new drama dragged him back to square one. Sure, he'd picked up tricks along the way — but if someone asked whether he'd actually become a man who knew how to make a good drama, he wouldn't have the confidence to say yes.
Just as the CEO was glaring holes into the script in search of an answer, his direct line rang. It was Leader Actors.
Shim Dongwook snatched up the phone.
“Hey, Seongbeom.”
The moment he answered, Gam Seongbeom's voice came booming through.
“Our actor says he'll think about it.”
It was a completely different posture from last time, when he'd come calling with other actors' names held up like a shield. Last time he'd groveled past the point of humility; today, the man was ringing like a bell.
Stars that rise, rise indeed — and Lee Heeyoon was…
Wait. Hold on.
Think about it?
“You— you mean the actor Lee Heeyoon, right?”
“Yes, Lee Heeyoon.”
It was real. The actual Lee Heeyoon was deliberating.
Shim Dongwook listened hard to the nuance behind the words he'll think about it.
Twenty years of this work had sharpened his instincts — he'd gotten quite good at reading the subtext of an actor's management.
And this? This was the unmistakable flavor of we're definitely going to say yes, but we're going to pretend to test the waters first to bump up the price.
Gam Seongbeom went on.
“But I heard every other actor turned this script down. It's not going to fall through, is it?”
“Oh, come on, what kind of rumors have you been listening to? It'll work. We're the ones making it — of course it'll work.”
Each side was probing, and each side was bluffing through its teeth. Gam Seongbeom surely knew his own confident promise was pure bluster, too.
But this was how it always went — probing, bluffing, piecing the puzzle together bit by bit until hesitation hardened into decision, and decision into certainty. Right now, they were in the puzzle-assembling stage.
Lee Heeyoon acted like a marvel, but he was still young. Nineteen, for crying out loud — there was no way he'd caught the subtleties of that notoriously difficult script. It had probably just looked like a fun read to him.
In which case, a little more pushing here and there…
“The script's a fun one, no question, right?”
“Absolutely. Heeyoon loves it, and above all, our VP has fallen head over heels for it.”
“Right, right — plenty of actors are eyeing this thing. Grab it while you can, before someone else does.”
The moment he'd finished his enthusiastic little pep talk, Gam Seongbeom spoke again.
“That's exactly why we want to lock things down fast. But — one thing. Our actor has exactly one worry.”
“The guarantee, is it? Ha, sure, we'll meet whatever's reasonable.”
“No, it's not that. He says there are too many parts that can't be brought to life.”
“……What?”
“He says it's fun to read but no fun to act — a lot of those parts.”
In that instant, Shim Dongwook felt as if the kid he'd written off as young had seen straight through him, and heat flooded his face. From that moment on, his tongue tied itself in knots, and every word out of Gam Seongbeom's mouth landed like an interrogation.
“This is the writer's first script, isn't it?”
“Well…”
“I'm only telling you because I'm worried. Our actor does not let things slide. That's just his nature. Anything along the lines of 'it'll work itself out,' and he will march straight over and demand answers. We can't control that part of him, either.”
Shim Dongwook remembered going out for drinks once with some of the directing staff who'd worked on Lee Heeyoon's shoots. They'd told him: when that actor saw something wrong, he charged at it — writer, director, didn't matter who.
Apparently deciding it was better to lay all his cards on the table now, Gam Seongbeom spoke without a shred of concealment.
“Our actor is a hundred-year-old tiger. Cross him wrong, and you'll be the one getting eaten.”