Sapi-Jeong's Secret Weapon
Sapi-jeong. The drama The Garden Where Love Blooms unfolds mainly around the area behind the Daldongne Museum in Songwol-dong, Dong-gu, Incheon. The location perfectly captured the classic hillside village imagery people associate with those neighborhoods, and it served as the home of the female protagonist, Jung So-young. Another quiet alley in Incheon’s Dong-gu housed the flower shop she ran. Jung So-young is a widow who lost her husband and now single-handedly operates the shop while raising her daughter, Bom-i. Staying by her side is her childhood friend and local café owner, Park Sang-jun. Their relationship sits in that ambiguous space—sort of hers, but not quite. The neighbors didn’t have much and didn’t earn much, yet even while living day to day, they refused to lose heart and lived with genuine happiness.
The peace of that neighborhood shatters when Kang Tae-hyun, the second son of a chaebol family, appears. Hiding his true identity, he attempts to buy the building where Jung So-young’s flower shop sits. In the process, he clashes with her at every turn. A classic romantic comedy featuring a sweet, resilient heroine and an arrogant, entitled chaebol hero. Or so the synopsis goes.
“And by throwing in a bold little rascal called ‘Bom-i,’ the story becomes even more thrilling.”
“Oh… so that bold little rascal is me?”
“Exactly. You’re the ultimate joker card. Sapi-jeong’s secret weapon.”
The person chattering away beside me in the car was none other than Lim Eun-soo, the writer of The Garden Where Love Blooms. For a writer hailed as the rising star of the drama world to personally mark an actor as hers? Yep, that actor is me.
Throughout the entire ride, Lim Eun-soo stayed glued to the seat next to me, pouring out explanations about the character. Most people would probably get annoyed if they had to explain something the whole way in someone else’s car, but her eyes were literally sparkling.
“Bom-i isn’t just a cute daughter. She’s the anchor that holds So-young steady when she wavers, and the ray of sunlight that melts Tae-hyun’s frozen heart. Sometimes she even delivers verbal beatdowns to the adults.”
“Oh. Verbal beatdowns? I’m extremely confident in that area.”
No need to hide it. I, Yoon Seo-ah, have racked up two weeks of taekwondo and three weeks of hapkido in this life alone. Five weeks total of martial arts mastery. I suddenly felt perfectly cast for the role the writer had envisioned.
“Right? I knew it the moment I saw you on that variety show. You are Bom-i. Or maybe seeing you helped me flesh out Yoon Bom’s character even more? Anyway.”
With the writer’s boundless trust riding on my shoulders, we arrived at the filming set. Staff members bustled around everywhere, and a thick tension hung over the entire location. Director Lim Eun-soo had already explained that the lighthearted child-actor scenes had wrapped and today marked the start of the real adult cast filming. Still… I’d expected more laughter. Something like, “Haha, I NG’d! Sorry, let’s go again!” or “Wow, that was great! How about trying it this way for this part?” followed by “Oh! I was thinking exactly the same thing! We’re so in sync, aren’t we? Haha!”
Instead, everyone wore blank expressions and simply did their jobs. The atmosphere felt… heavy.
As I headed toward the set, a familiar voice rang out.
“Oh! There’s our Seo-ah!”
Director Lee Jung-moon spotted me and greeted me warmly, like a grandfather welcoming his granddaughter. Sitting beside him was Oh Yoon-hee, the top actress cast as Jung So-young. She looked even more beautiful in person than on TV, but her eyes carried a distinct chill.
“Hello! I’m rookie actor Yoon Seo-ah!”
I bowed politely. Oh Yoon-hee scanned me up and down before giving a small nod.
“Yes, so you’re Bom-i.”
“That’s right! Please take good care of me, sunbae!”
“Sure. The director’s been singing your praises. I’ll be watching with high expectations.”
She said “expectations,” but that face told a different story. Her eyes were sharp, clearly saying, Let’s see how good you really are. She obviously knew I was Director Lee’s parachute pick and wasn’t thrilled about it. She seemed worried an unproven child actor might disrupt her performance.
This isn’t going to be easy.
I took a deep breath internally. I’d expected the cast’s coldness and jealousy when I accepted the role. After Oh Yoon-hee turned away with that frosty attitude and buried herself in the script, the people watching all seemed flustered. The staff kept moving, but their eyes kept sliding toward us. It felt like they were waiting to see how the newly rolled-in stone would crack the one already embedded in place. Whatever the reason, their gazes brimmed with curious interest.
“Come on, everyone, what’s with this atmosphere? Bom-i’s here—let’s greet her with some energy!”
Director Lee Jung-moon tried to lighten the mood with a loud voice, but Oh Yoon-hee cut in.
“Director, I need to focus on my emotions right now. It’s nice that you’re looking after her, but please don’t let it interfere with the work.”
His excessive care seemed to have struck a nerve. The director who was supposedly a tiger on set suddenly looked sheepish in front of the top star.
“Ah, um. Sorry, Yoon-hee.”
Director Lee scratched his head awkwardly and gave me a quick glance. “Then I’ll see you later, sunbae!”
She didn’t even acknowledge me this time. How could she treat someone as adorable, pretty, and lovable as me this way? What a witch.
I quietly moved on to greet the next person. I said hello to every staff member I passed and personally sought out each waiting actor to introduce myself as the rookie. Thankfully, while some clearly showed discomfort, no one openly challenged me.
After finishing my rounds, I found my spot. There wasn’t much of a “spot” really—I’d simply changed in the wardrobe room. Simple jeans and a cotton t-shirt. I guess the days of characters in hillside villages wearing torn clothes are long gone; that was a 90s drama trope. These days even poor characters dress decently. This outfit was even a brand name. I wondered if it broke immersion, but that was the director’s problem to solve.
The hair stylist tied my hair into pigtails. Then came the real flower of the drama. The highlight. The entire reason for its existence. My waiting time had arrived.
Lights were adjusted, camera positions were set. Other actors would come film their scenes, while those not in the shot waited again. These cycles turned like a hamster wheel for what felt like an eternity. Drama filming is ninety percent waiting.
The other actors either scrolled on their phones or took power naps, but as a child I couldn’t do that. I pulled out the workbook Ji-ah had stuffed into my bag. It was full of elementary math problems from book 1-1—things I could solve in my head without effort. This wasn’t even real calculation. I sighed deeply and picked up the pencil.
One plus one is… cutie pie… Two plus two is… cutie pie…
I muttered under my breath and mechanically wrote down the numbers. I could feel the staff members stealing glances at me. No need to hide it—this was image-making. The diligent child actor cosplay. Ji-ah had predicted everything: that the actors would avoid me and I’d end up alone, that the waiting time would be endless. So I sat there with my workbook open, building my image and killing time for about thirty minutes.
Then the air on set shifted subtly.
“Move the lights over here!”
“Check the audio again.”
The staff who had been waiting like me began moving again. Oh Yoon-hee, now finished with prep, stepped onto the set. The ice queen who had been blowing cold wind earlier had completely vanished. She wore soft pastel clothes with her hair tied back tightly. Her hands were deliberately dirtied with soil to show she’d been arranging flowers all day, yet her face overflowed with vitality. She had become Jung So-young—the heroine who never lost her smile despite poverty and hardship. The words “insane” came to mind unbidden. Beautiful didn’t even cover it. A goddess had descended.
…Is this what a true top star’s aura looks like?
It felt completely different from the way I used to strut around school after becoming a celebrity. While I stared at Oh Yoon-hee in awe, the assistant director approached.
“Seo-ah, you’re up after this scene. You ready?”
“Already? Yes, understood.”
Whether Director Lee had pulled strings, whether it was standard practice for child actors, or whether I’d simply gotten lucky with the scene order, I didn’t know. Either way, jackpot. I closed the workbook and quietly moved to the edge of the filming area.
This was my first time watching a drama shoot. Getting to observe a top star’s acting up close was an experience money couldn’t buy, so I positioned myself to watch carefully. The assistant director who had just told me my scene was coming up now stood at the center of the set.
“All standby!”
At his announcement, everyone’s expressions changed instantly.
“Sound.”
“Speed.”
When Director Lee Jung-moon looked at the sound team, they responded with “speed.” He immediately turned to the camera team.
“Camera.”
“Rolling.”
After receiving their reply, he called for the slate.
“Slate.”
“Scene number 6-1, cut A, take one! Set!”
The young man who had introduced himself as the directing department’s youngest when we greeted earlier now stood before the camera and shouted the commands. In variety shows it was just “Slate, please!” and done, but drama filming was far more complicated. Sound, speed, camera, rolling, slate, and so on, all the way to “set.” I could roughly follow the terms, but it really drove home that I had entered a much more professional filming environment.
After completing that complex and cumbersome sequence, the director’s familiar cue finally rang out.
“Ready! Action!”