The Most Important Thing in This Business: Choice (5)
For a second, I couldn't tell.
Was the person in front of me Lee Songha, or Jung Haewon? She looked nothing like the girl I knew.
While I hesitated, a pale hand rose to cover her mouth, and then I heard her cough.
Songha. The moment I thought it, my head snapped clear.
"Get in here. Quick."
I shook open the enormous puffer I'd been holding, and Songha—already at my nose in a few strides—slipped inside as if the coat had swallowed her. Her face was blue with cold. I ran the zipper up to the bridge of her nose and tugged the hood over her head. A cold now would be a disaster.
"Is it already over?"
"No. We go back in after they get the leads' reaction shots."
Songha shook her head and caught my arm, light but sure. She was staring straight through me. Rolled up tight as a kimbap, nothing showed but her eyes, and every time the bonfire shuddered in the wind those eyes wavered, steeped in reddish light.
"Oppa."
"Yeah?"
"Who is it?"
Only then did I remember what I'd been saying to Chief Lee Bong-joon a moment ago. She'd heard all of it. Afraid I'd startled her in the middle of a shoot, I answered at once.
"I don't know either. I heard the Team 3 leader shut it down on the spot."
"Oh. But who..."
"I really don't know. I only got it secondhand from Team Leader Park."
"Team Leader Park."
Songha nodded, murmuring it under her breath. The thick puffer swallowed most of the sound, but it was plain she was gathering herself after the shock. The hand that had slipped free of the sleeve was still clutching my clothes.
Even if she didn't make a scene the way Chief Lee had predicted, this was enough. The feeling itched, and I scratched the back of my neck. I'd be lying if I said a warm satisfaction didn't settle in my chest. It meant everything Songha and I had built, living through all of this side by side, was nowhere near as light as it sometimes looked. I was the same. If she ever told me she wanted a manager who wasn't me, I figured I'd spend a few days at the bottom of a bottle.
"Scene 37! Songha, back to standby, please!"
Songha went back into the set, ringed by a dozen crew, cameras, and gear. I kept my eyes on her. She bowed along to Director Shin Tae-gyun's instructions and answered him, no different from any other day.
Turning the company upside down. Possessiveness. None of that suited Lee Songha.
"Songha's just a little dry, personality-wise."
I shrugged as I said it, and Chief Lee Bong-joon laid a thick arm across my shoulder. Then he looked at me, steady and close. What was that look—fellow feeling sloshing over until it was about to burst?
"I don't know about that. You didn't see the letters in Songha's eyes?"
"Letters?"
With his free hand, he pointed at my left eye.
"Left eye. Wh."
Wh?
"Right eye. O."
Who?
I was still trying to call her eyes back when he went on.
"Way I saw it, she only just opened them. Properly."
"What?"
"You. Just now. Looked to me like you flipped the switch."
"What are you even—"
I was about to ask again.
"Cut! Songha, did you forget your line?"
Director Shin Tae-gyun's voice jabbed straight into my ear.
I didn't believe what I'd heard. Forgot her line? Lee Songha? I whipped my head toward the set. Under the white pour of the lights, Songha stood with her mouth clamped shut.
Not Jung Haewon. Lee Songha.
That day, Songha blew one take after another—NG after NG. It was the first time. Just in case, I planted myself in front of her and told her over and over that I wasn't going anywhere. If I'd had a stamp on me, I might have written it out as a signed pledge. I couldn't say for certain that was why, but near the end Director Shin finally gave her the okay, and the whole thing passed as a minor incident brought on by Songha being off her game.
After that, nothing was wrong. Chief Lee had said strange things—that she'd properly opened her eyes, that I'd flipped a switch—so I'd been watching her ever since, and she was exactly the same as always. A little earlier, they'd also wrapped Next K-Star's mission to cover an old hit.
Not that the judges weren't still flinging sharp little critiques. A pack of Cinderella's stepsisters, the lot of them. The kids had shaved their sleep to the bone for that stage, and from where I stood they'd done just fine. The judging was one thing. What worried me first was how the edit would treat it this time. The man who called himself the show's main PD had gotten a taste for using Songha to pump the ratings. If the judges were the stepsisters, he was the stepmother.
I glared at PD Go Joon-tae as he wrapped the shoot, then turned to the Neptune kids. They were handing their mics back to the audio crew, every one of them worn out from the long recording.
Traitor had said he needed a quick word with Simon Lee, so I'd come to collect the kids on my own. I patted their shoulders one by one, and when I looked for Songha last, my brow snapped tight.
Some bastard was glued to her side. I only saw the back of his head, and still I knew him at once. The one who rapped in Punchline. Lee Joohwan. The same guy who'd run his mouth in front of the stylists about going after Songha, or whatever it had been. We already crossed paths every time Next K-Star recorded, so I'd been keeping an eye on him. Until now he'd only glanced when they passed. He hadn't walked up to her outright.
I closed the distance in long strides, and Lee Joohwan's voice reached me.
"You okay?"
"Ah. Yes."
"The judges talking nonsense—just figure a dog's barking and let it go. That's what I did."
Songha froze. I startled too and looked around. Had he lost his mind? There were VJs everywhere. Filming had ended, luckily, and none of them had a camera on the pair, but the mics could still be hot, and he was openly calling the judges dogs. Did he need to screw Songha over right along with himself?
I stepped between them without hesitating.
"Songha. You worked hard. Let's go."
"Yes, Oppa."
Songha moved to my side. Behind us, a mutter.
"What, idols aren't even allowed to flirt a little? Playing real hard to get."
Flirting. Sure. The look Songha had given him sat about a million light-years from flirting. If that was flirting, then the way she looked at a bowl of rice was pure lust. I was going to need a word with Punchline's manager.
"Songha, don't have anything to do with him."
She bobbed a quick, eager nod.
Yeah. That's what I thought. Flirting, my ass. I snorted again.
The others were already gone, probably back to the waiting room. Songha and I were leaving the set when someone came toward us through the crew bustling to strike. A slick, unpleasant face. PD Go Joon-tae. He tapped my forearm.
"Don't worry about the judges' comments today. Cut what needs cutting in the edit, stitch in a little of what needs stitching, and it'll come out plenty favorable."
"We'd really appreciate it this time."
Why was he doing something he'd never done? I gave him the courtesy and put every suspicious feeler up. PD Go went on.
"Oh, and I'll be watching Cat Guardian Spirit live. Caught the special last time—the drama looks like a lot of fun. Songha's acting was incredible. At this rate, who knows. Next K-Star might be the show that produces a top star."
Unbelievable. Songha becoming a top star was something I'd welcome. But why was he chalking that up as his own doing, the shameless bastard? All Next K-Star had given her was an armful of name recognition and a mountain of shit big enough to bury every bit of it. How hard we'd worked to turn the public opinion that show had soured into the good mood we had now—and what it had cost us, inside.
I answered with a smile that lived only on my mouth.
"Yes. The show came out so well that we're looking forward to it too."
"Ah... that so?"
PD Go's lips worked a few times before he asked.
"The ratings. How high are they projecting?"
In truth I was hoping for over ten percent, but I didn't say so. I didn't want to hear I'd jinxed it. The special had hit a per-minute peak of six percent, so even just holding that would be a smash once you factored in a cable channel. The crew and everyone involved were calling it somewhere between eight and nine.
"For now we're discussing a ratings pledge in the eight-to-nine range."
"Eight, nine percent?"
PD Go's eyes went round. Then he scratched hard at the back of his head, and a moment later slid back into that oily tone.
"So you're still swamped with filming these days, yeah? Songha's only supporting and she already looks tired. Seo Ji-joon's the lead, same company—he must be even busier?"
"...That's right."
Aha. So that was why he was suddenly doing something he'd never done. The way Seo Ji-joon's name popped out of nowhere, I could guess well enough what was turning over in his head. A moment ago only my mouth had been smiling. This time the smile took up my whole face.
"Seo Ji-joon is extremely busy, yes."
Kim Pan-seok, CEO of Pan Production, tapped a beer bottle with a spoon.
"A toast! For Seo Ji-joon!"
A cheer went up inside the barbecue place. One table held the camera, lighting, and sound crews. Another seated CEO Kim, writer Hong Joo-mi, Director Shin Tae-gyun, and the lead and supporting cast. The managers in charge had a table of their own. Everywhere, glasses sloshed.
It was a company dinner to watch the live premiere of Cat Guardian Spirit. Seo Ji-joon was treating, so everyone had come except a few with schedules that couldn't move. The making-of team was there too, cameras rolling, and people hid their faces with desperate commitment to stay out of frame. They'd only just wrapped an outdoor scene, and the state of them was something else. Anyone who didn't know better would have taken them for a gathering of the homeless, not a drama crew.
Even while they worked their chopsticks, people kept turning toward the wall-mounted TV. The previous program had ended, and commercials were running.
"What are we supposed to put on the line for the ratings pledge?"
The female lead's manager said it around a gulp of beef still red at the center. Another manager cut in while he built a soju bomb, a shot of soju dropped into beer.
"Oh, right—Mutnain put up a ratings pledge too. Theirs was twenty percent."
"Twenty percent?! Whoa. That's steep."
A stir spread, and the manager who'd brought it up shrugged.
"It's not a crazy number. Their climb right now is no joke. Wonder how long they keep rising."
Through episode three, at least. I thought it while flipping the beef as it browned, glistening and ready.
"I thought our drama was going to be the big one of early this year."
"Come on. You know how stacked the terrestrial lineup is. IBC's Timeslip hit twelve percent on yesterday's broadcast. A genre piece, and it more than held its own."
"That one's writer and director just mesh really well."
They mesh a little too well over there. Well enough for an affair to sink the show.
I cut the meat into big pieces with the scissors. Juice ran in streams. Was Songha eating all right? I looked over at her, wedged between Seo Ji-joon and another supporting actor. She was nodding along, listening hard to the talk around her, and her mouth never stopped either.
One cheek rounded with food, Songha turned her head and looked right at me. Our eyes met. I smiled to tell her the meat was expensive, so eat a lot, and she glanced left and right, checking the room. Then she quietly got up, a small plate in one hand and chopsticks in the other.
She knee-walked over across the floor and settled in beside me, then set the plate down on my side. A small plate holding several hefty pieces of beef.
"For me?"
"Yes."
She nodded, then said it in a small voice.
"Chief Lee is the only one who keeps eating."
I ate one piece of the beef Songha had given me only after making up her mind—really, truly making up her mind—and in return filled her plate until it was heaped. Chief Lee Bong-joon's eyes stabbed at me, but I ignored them. I was going to feed her until she burst. I'd just laid a fresh round of meat on the grill with great purpose when an assistant director shouted.
"Last commercial! One minute to air!"
The barbecue place, noisy as a market in full cry, went quiet in a breath. Everyone stared at the TV with faces flushed from excitement and anticipation.
People had all kinds of ways of enjoying a drama. Some locked their eyes on the screen as if they were sitting in a movie theater. Others went online and checked the viewers' reactions in real time. What they shared was that every one of them was soaked through with the mood of a festival.
"Posts are blowing up on every community and every social feed!"
"And most of them are positive!"
"Agh—whenever Seo Ji-joon and Lee Songha come on, the reactions absolutely explode!"
I'd read the script until I could recite it, and I'd watched the scenes being shot on set, but seeing the drama come out cut smooth and clean moved me more than I'd expected. The show itself was well made, and every time Songha's face filled the screen my chest went tight with pride. Songha, too, was staring at the screen as if spellbound, looking more satisfied than she ever did over beef.
Through the loud chatter, vibrations and ringtones never stopped. My phone had been going off for a while too. Reporter Park Woo-jung, saying she'd already written several articles. My brother and his wife, sending a long review before the episode had even ended. My parents, and my friends. Texts from the company PR staff as well.
The ones pouring in hardest were Lim Seoyoung's messages. The Neptune kids must have been watching together back at the dorm, because the chats came up by the minute. Songha had clearly been filmed and yet somehow wasn't on screen; the fans were in an uproar in the fan cafe. I didn't need to monitor any of it myself.
When the drama finally ended, the barbecue place was packed to bursting with dozens of voices at once. Servers brought beer without a pause, glasses were refilled the moment they emptied, and people clumped into one mass, racing each other to call for toasts.
What settled all that chaos was a single phone call. From TVL's master control room.
Everyone—even the restaurant servers—watched Director Shin Tae-gyun on the phone. He was not a man who spent expressions freely, and his face alone made the number impossible to guess. Soon he hung up. Then he looked our way and asked.
"Cast, what percent were you discussing for the ratings pledge?"
Someone said eight. Someone said nine. Director Shin smiled.