The One Who Has Something to Protect (1)
It took two full days before Lee Songha finally dropped off the real-time search.
The controversy hadn't died. Fewer people were searching her name only because, by then, anyone who was going to hear about it already had. Type her name into a portal and the manufactured articles still came flooding up, more than anyone could be bothered to count, and every time a related post hit a community site, dozens—hundreds—of comments piled on, tearing into each other.
So for those two days, Lee Songha did nothing but run her lines inside the place where she was staying.
Which meant this was her first time stepping outside since the incident broke.
"Taehee unni went by the convenience store, and she said a lot of people recognized her."
"Yeah?"
"She took pictures with them and signed autographs before she came back."
In the rearview mirror, Lee Songha had her chin propped on the window frame, watching the street go by. Her long, thick hair streamed in the wind, and through it I caught, now and then, eyes I couldn't read.
Everyone else seemed to have let out a breath. Songha was so deadpan by nature, and nothing on the surface suggested her composure was cracking, so they'd set the worry down. I couldn't. She wasn't fine. She just didn't let it show.
"Seoyoung unni went home, and she said her whole family and all her relatives were in an uproar. They told her to sign things so they could hand them out as gifts, and she ended up doing about fifty before she left."
Her voice sounded a little lower.
Songha drew back from the window, leaned her upper body toward the front seat, and asked, "Oppa. Do you think I'll have to sign things soon, too?"
A glance showed shadow across her face. She looked genuinely grave. It was the first expression like that I'd seen on her since the incident broke.
Thinking her mood had sunk, I answered at once.
"Of course. You'll have tons of them."
"That's a problem."
She murmured it.
"I forgot what my signature even was..."
The strength ran straight out of my shoulders. There was truly no keeping up with her.
"You forgot your signature? Of all things?"
"At debut the company said mine looked like scribbling and made one for me, but I had no reason to use it for two years, so I forgot. What do I do. I'll stay up all night and practice."
"That's hardly worth an all-nighter. Tomorrow's the script reading. You need to rest."
While I was saying it, half-deflated, we reached the streets around the company. I was about to turn in at the parking entrance the way I always did when I saw roughly ten people gathered there. Most of them were young women in thick winter puffers. No—there were young girls among them, too.
When I listened, Korean and Chinese ran together.
What is this?
With Songha in the car, I couldn't help being conscious of people's eyes. Plenty were defending her, but an enormous number were cursing her, too, and I was afraid someone might do it out here, not just online.
As I pulled toward the parking entrance, two young girls approached, cautious. Thinking I couldn't hear, they whispered to each other, and what they said was a sight.
"Hey, you ask. Hurry."
"No. He looks prickly. I feel like I'll get yelled at. You ask."
"Ugh... Excuse me, mister."
The form of address was so shocking I creased my brow, then saw the school uniforms and barely managed to accept it.
Right. To them, even a soldier counted as a mister.
"Aren't the Blackout oppas coming into the company today?"
I'd guessed as much from the fact that they were all girls, and sure enough, they were Blackout fans. An eleven-member boy group whose faces I still hadn't seen once, though I'd been commuting here for over a month. The undisputed rulers of the grade-school set.
I'd caught the news that they were flying home today after wrapping their Asia tour. Looked like these kids were waiting out front of the agency for a glimpse.
"Can't you just tell us whether they're coming or not? Please? We're really only going to check that the oppas are healthy and leave. We seriously won't be a bother. We'll look at their faces from far away and go."
"There were so many people at the airport earlier we couldn't even see them properly. Somebody shoved me and I fell and scraped my elbow."
I felt for them. They'd just grabbed the wrong person.
"Sorry, I don't really know their sched—"
I was answering as kindly as I could, but the kids weren't looking at me. All of them were staring blankly off to the side.
More precisely, through the open window, at Lee Songha.
The instant I thought oh no and moved to roll the window up, one of the girls muttered.
"Whoa. Filthy..."
Filthy?
"She's filthy pretty."
Songha glanced at me once, then leaned her head out the window and greeted them.
"Hello."
"Oh my god, unni, you are Lee Songha, right!"
"Yes. I am."
"This is insane, unni, you're so pretty! You don't even look human!"
The girl with the short bob kept gasping, thrilled. The one beside her was fumbling with her phone, maybe trying to take a picture. The two of them making a fuss drew murmurs from the people gathered farther off, and those eyes turned this way too.
"Who? Who is that?"
"You know, that girl in Neptune. The one doing the drama with Seo Ji-joon. The one everything's blowing up over right now."
"Damn. Eyes, nose, and mouth, the whole face fits in a palm. How does a person even look like that? She gets the world all to herself."
Thankfully, the thing I'd been afraid of didn't happen. Of course there were people watching her with unkind eyes. But those people only muttered among themselves from a distance. Everyone who came close enough to speak was beaming.
A sigh of relief slipped out on its own. Starting tomorrow she'd have to be out and around for all sorts of schedules, and I'd been worried about it. If it stayed at this level, we could endure.
"Unni, hang in there! I'll definitely watch the drama!"
"Could you take just one picture with me?"
"I saw Son Chae-young going in earlier, but unni, you're way prettier!"
I'd been watching, rather pleased, and stalled on that last remark.
Why was Son Chae-young here?
I didn't even get the chance to wonder. The kids thrust their phones forward and clung on. Well, the higher-ups had said to allow proof photos and autographs whenever we reasonably could.
I nodded, and Songha got all the way out of the car to take the pictures with them—with the girls in uniform, and with the Chinese girls hauling suitcases, the ones who looked like tourists.
I was the one behind the camera, of course.
"Ah, mister... I came out a squid. Was this really your best?"
"It was my best."
"Whoa. No mercy."
I truly had done my best. The results were a tragedy.
The kids looked so crushed by the two-shot that Songha signed a few autographs to make up for it. She drew with the concentration of someone creating a work of art, and the seriousness was real. I could have done better with my eyes closed, using my left hand.
The Chinese tourists were busily filming even that on their phones. They kept talking, and I couldn't catch a word of it. From the steady thumbs-up, I figured it meant she was pretty.
Only after we'd given them everything they wanted did we finally pull into the parking lot.
I cut the engine and undid my seat belt, and a faint laugh drifted up from the back. I turned. Songha was staring straight at me, smiling.
Strictly speaking, they hadn't been her fans. Still—had this put her in a better mood?
"You like it that much?"
"They said you look prickly."
"What?"
Not the answer I'd expected. Now that I thought about it, the kids had said exactly that at the start.
I was about to tell her I heard it often, but Songha got out of the car first.
Leaving a single line behind her.
"You don't."
The reason I'd brought Songha into the company today was Team Leader Park.
That morning CEO Baek Han-sung had gone over to TVL, settled the discussion, and come back, and on the strength of that it was decided a making-of team would clamp onto Cat Guardian Spirit from here on and film the entire production up close.
In other words, tomorrow's script reading would be the first hook we put out.
Neither of us had ever been to a script reading, so we took in a few pieces of advice. Every lead and supporting actor in the drama would be gathered there, the staff along with them, and she needed to leave a good impression.
When the talk ended I stood to go first—Team Leader Park had said there was something he needed to tell Songha alone—and an unwelcome name popped out yet again.
"Oh, right. Son Chae-young should still be in the building. If you happen to run into her, quietly steer clear. She's a bomb right now."
"Why?"
"An article went out about the script reading for The Mermaid Who Came Ashore. It got buried under the Songha incident and missed number one on the real-time search, so she whined for a solid hour. I've seen plenty of high-maintenance celebrities, but even among them, she's something else."
Team Leader Park shook his head, looking thoroughly done. I nodded and headed down to the lounge.
Everyone must have been working; the place was nothing but empty tables. I was pulling my canned coffee from the vending machine and choosing a sweet drink for Songha when the back of my neck went cold. I turned.
Damn it.
Speak of the devil. Son Chae-young was glaring at me.
I was the one who'd been told to get lost the first time we met, so what was she glaring at me for? The matter of Songha's lesson teacher kept snagging at me as it was. If anyone found that face unpleasant to look at, it was me.
But nothing was confirmed, and she was one of the company's marquee actresses.
I buried what I was thinking and greeted her with a face that gave nothing away.
"Hello."
The click of high heels drew closer. Son Chae-young looked at me with unpleasant eyes and swept right past. She didn't go far. She sat at the table directly behind me and flipped open the script she'd been carrying, The Mermaid Who Came Ashore.
Unbelievable.
A temper like that, and she wants to play a mermaid? She ought to be the witch.
There was what Team Leader Park had said, and staying any longer would only sour my mood, so I started to leave. From behind me came a voice threaded with laughter.
"A package-deal scandal, of all things. How humiliating. Lee Songha, was it? Is her mental state all right? Pass it along—she needs to do well, so she doesn't drag down the image of the other actors at W&U. But with this much noise before it's even started, how well do you really expect a drama to do?"
The anger that had been boiling in my gut settled, at that last line, as if someone had dashed it with ice water.
In its place, for the first time in a long while, I felt what that barber must have felt—the one who finally had to shout that the king had donkey ears.
Maybe I ought to climb up to the roof and let it out.
Before you worry about us, worry about that drama of yours that's going to scrape three percent.
But then it struck me. What a relief.
The first time I'd met Son Chae-young had been in this very lounge. Back then, when she and Chief Jo had laid two synopses in front of me and asked which project I thought would do better.
If Son Chae-young had actually taken my words to heart and not chosen that project.
And if I had recommended Cat Guardian Spirit to her instead.
How different would things be now?
I might never have asked Songha whether she wanted to try acting. I might never have seen the future waiting for her. I might never have had cause to follow her around and talk her into it. And then Songha would never have started acting at all.
We'd come awfully close to a real disaster.
Being told to get lost that day had been the greatest luck I could have asked for.
"The drama will do well."
I said it with a deliberate smile, and Son Chae-young's brow tightened, just slightly.
That was when the elevator stopped on the fourth floor.
The doors slid open. Songha, who had been glancing around inside, found me and hurried over.
"You waited, didn't you."
"No..."
In that moment I noticed the look on Son Chae-young's face as she watched Songha—strangely twisted. Songha followed my gaze, saw her, and stopped dead.
Their eyes tangled in the empty air between them.
And for the first time, I saw a fierce, unmistakable aversion in Lee Songha's eyes.