The Deputy Commander Takes Command
With PD Kim Chul-min’s tacit approval, I started talking to the kids, locking eyes with each of them. A one-time assistant MC was stealing more screen time than the main MC, yet Kim Chul-min didn’t seem to care one bit.
“Hey… Kim Min-jun, crew member?”
“Yes! Deputy Commander!”
“Good. Min-jun looks the strongest, so you’re taking point. Clear?”
“Yes! But… how did you know my name?”
“It’s on your name tag.”
“Ohhh.”
Kim Min-jun looked flustered for a second, but his eyes quickly filled with rock-solid determination. He had the kind of trustworthy gaze that said he’d smash through whatever enemy or trap appeared in front of him.
Hmm… Is that all he’s got?
I was almost thrown off by how ridiculously ambitious the first kid I called turned out to be, but I kept my cool and moved on.
“Park Ji-hye, crew member!”
“Yes!”
“Ji-hye has big eyes, so I bet you’re great at spotting things far away. Keep a sharp lookout for any hints we might miss.”
“I will! I mean, yes, I will!”
Park Ji-hye clenched both fists, burning with enthusiasm. My pupils might have shaken for a split second, but I nodded calmly and pressed on.
Finally I approached the youngest-looking member, the team’s baby.
“Lee Rowoon, crew member!”
“…Y-yes?”
“Hmm… Rowoon’s the king of big, which makes you the king of cute. So your job is to be the expedition team’s mascot and stick right by our side at all times. Understood? This is the most important mission today.”
“…Huh?”
Rowoon’s face flushed bright red. Cute little gasps and sighs rippled across the set.
I had the existing crew members wrapped around my finger in just a few minutes of filming. No, I’d even captured the hearts of the production staff. Park Si-hoo, who was supposed to shine as the main MC and leader, had been reduced to playing second fiddle to me.
If they had been new kids, he might have tried to butt in somehow, but these were the regulars he filmed with every week. He clearly hadn’t expected me to start handing out roles, so he couldn’t come up with a timely line to jump back in. The opening segment ended up completely belonging to me.
I finished assigning the kids their roles and was about to wrap up with a satisfied smile when Rowoon tilted his head, as if something had just occurred to him.
“But… Deputy Commander, how old are you?!”
“Yeah! How old are you?! You look younger than me!”
“…Me?”
Only then did it hit me that I’d been so caught up in my role that I’d been speaking casually to them. To escape the sudden crisis, I frantically dug through every meme and famous line I knew from my past life and this one. I needed the single most plausible thing to say right now.
I put on the most solemn, resolute expression I could muster and slowly scanned the children.
“Ehhh? Why?!”
“Out of nowhere?”
“…?!”
The kids looked utterly confused, but every single staff member flinched. Especially the men. It was as if forgotten military uniforms had flashed through their minds; a few of the cameras shook slightly.
I ignored their reactions and kept my grave expression firmly in place.
The young crew members stared at me like I was speaking another language, but the adults’ reaction was explosive. The entire set filled with the sound of people desperately trying to hold in their laughter.
I let out a quiet sigh of relief inside. I won with sheer momentum. Crisis averted. Thinking that eight years old was the only age I’d ever liked, I looked at the children again and once more played the part of a charismatic… well, deputy commander.
“Kkureogi Tamheomdae! We now begin our broadcast station expedition! Everyone together—depart!”
“Depart!”
Age clearly didn’t mean much to the kids. The whole debate about the deputy commander’s age was forgotten in an instant as they answered in perfect unison like soldiers under my command. Park Si-hoo stared at the scene in disbelief.
These kids these days… Thinking about how different they were from his own generation, he naturally fell into step beside me.
“Cut! Okay! Wow… excellent! Really excellent!”
“We’ll take a ten-minute break!”
PD Kim Chul-min shot up from his seat, clapping enthusiastically. His face was a mixture of admiration and pure delight. He ran straight over to me and ruffled my hair.
“Wow, Seo-ah! Where on earth did a gem like you come from?!”
At his glowing praise I gave a shy smile and answered, “Aw, it’s nothing. The crew members just followed along really well.”
I had even perfectly nailed the final virtue of humility. Park Si-hoo’s fists were trembling as he watched.
He had always been in a competitive relationship with the previous MC, Kim Su-jin. They’d traded blows, but he had never been overwhelmingly outshone. This was the first time in his life he’d had the protagonist role stolen from him. And on day zero of filming, no less—by an eight-year-old parachute hire courtesy of an assistant director.
The humiliation and rage were written plainly across his young face.
The filming team moved inside the broadcasting station for the real broadcast. During the break while the cameras were off, Park Si-hoo walked up to me and growled in a tiny voice.
“…Know your place.”
“Sorry? My place? Like a rodent? A squirrel? Are you complimenting me right now by calling me cute? Thank you!”
My bright, completely off-base reply left Park Si-hoo’s face dyed with confusion. He opened and closed his mouth, unable to figure out how to respond to the mental leap from “know your place” to “rodent” to “squirrel.” A few staff members, including my uncle Chae Kang-ho who had been watching closely, finally couldn’t hold back their laughter and turned away.
Another victory for me in the battle of nerves. The tide had completely turned.
The first mission location was a massive prop room in the station basement. The moment we opened the door, a musty smell of dust hit us, along with mountains of historical drama armor and swords, every kind of furniture used in serious shows, and bizarre accessories from fantasy dramas. Depending on your point of view, they could be treasures or just random junk. It was a chaotic space.
“This is our expedition team’s first mission! ‘Open the golden chest!’”
Park Si-hoo’s voice grew noticeably more energetic, as if he were trying to make up for his defeat during the opening. He even added his own sound effect—boom!—and pointed at the large golden chest placed in the center of the prop room.
“Somewhere in this prop room is a key that can open that chest. However! There are dozens of fake keys mixed in that look exactly like the real one.”
Find the hidden key and open the chest. Whether it was because this was 2002 or because it was a children’s program, the mission was ridiculously simple. Even when I’d skimmed the script earlier, there were games so basic I wondered why they needed a script at all. It would have been better to cut down on the script and just have the PD or writer briefly explain the games. Back in 2002, there probably weren’t any producer-participation variety shows except for the ones made by star PD Na Yoo-seok. The effort to edit and the effort to write a script probably ended up about the same anyway.
At any rate, Park Si-hoo diligently explained the game exactly as written in the script, and I stood beside him playing the role of a pretty folding screen, nodding at appropriate moments. From my experience, people get hooked on the communication between cast members and the moments that come out during games, but no one ever thinks, Wow, that person explaining the rules is so fun, cute, pretty, and lovable! So there was no need to waste my energy on simply listing rules.
That said, I didn’t forget to throw in sharp questions at key moments.
“Question! Captain! How do we tell the real key from the fake ones?”
I asked while expecting reactions like That kid’s the youngest but has the best sense! or The prettiest one is the smartest, huh!
“Excellent question, Deputy Commander Seo-ah!”
Park Si-hoo pointed at an old black-and-white photo hanging on the wall.
“They say the hint for identifying the real key is hidden in that photo.”
In the photo, a man in clown makeup stood with a playful expression.
…Uncle?
The clown was none other than our pitiful AD, Chae Kang-ho—my maternal uncle. Originally AD stood for Assistant Director, but I’d heard people say it should mean All Director since they had to do everything. Poor uncle. When he graduated from the broadcasting department at Yeonseo University full of big dreams and first stepped into the station, he probably never imagined he’d end up in clown makeup. That’s life. It hurts, therefore it’s youth. Hang in there! That’s what it means to be a man!
I looked at him with pitying eyes, but he just smiled back at me. I decided I should treat my uncle better from now on.
“All right, the time limit is thirty minutes starting now. Mission begin!”
“Waaaaah—!!”
At Park Si-hoo’s shout, the Kkureogi Tamheomdae members scattered throughout the prop room with loud cries.
…That’s weird.
I was sure I had assigned roles to all the crew members. So where did everyone go? Why was I the only one left standing here with Park Si-hoo?