Did You Decide to Sink This Drama on Purpose? (4)

The first shoot of SBC's drama Suspect X had wrapped without a hitch, and the wrap ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠party that followed was, in a word, an inferno of celebration.

"Whoa! Seriously?! Chief Han is picking up the tab tonight?!"

"Kwahaha! That's right, that's right! Eat as much as you want! Dinner's on me tonight!"

"Thank you! Let's dig in!"

A beaming grin had spread across the face of Chief Producer Han Kanghee, a man famous for being a relentless stickler. The assistant directors and staff manning the grill chattered merrily, clinking glasses without a care. The mood was blazing hot enough to burn away all the exhaustion of the first shoot for one reason and one reason only: the catastrophic bombshell that had just detonated over at their competitor, tvM.

"Haah! Booze tastes sweet today. Sweet as honey. Why is it so damn good?"

"Hey, hey. I saw that exclusive article about Baek Kangmin earlier and lost my appetite for side dishes entirely. That boy absolutely torched the place on his way out."

"We have to go into the shoot right away and now our lead's flown the coop. Ugh, my stomach knots up just ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠thinking about it."

"That place must feel like a funeral home by now, right? Heh heh heh."

They say one man's misfortune is another man's joy. And the misfortune of tvM's Living with an Ex-Boyfriend by Chance—their rival in the very same timeslot—was practically a national holiday for SBC.

"Judging by how they've derailed straight out of the gate, they're done for, finished. Now we only need to keep MBS's The Noose reasonably in check, and the entire second-half ratings pie is ours for the taking, isn't it?"

"Hahaha! Exactly! Come on, cheers!"

Amid the cheerful clink of glasses, Han Kanghee smiled with languid satisfaction. No one at this table was relishing the moment more than he was. The ratings war with tvM was beside the point—he harbored a deep, personal grudge against Ji Yeonwoo, the writer of Living with an Ex-Boyfriend by Chance.

Heh heh heh. What kind of writing could that punk possibly produce? Pathetic loser.

A hapless PD who'd spent his days groveling at Han Kanghee's feet, still learning the ropes, and now he'd dared to pick up a pen and crawl out into the world. And of all things, he'd landed in tvM's tentpole lineup in the same timeslot? Han Kanghee had been fully prepared to watch with his own two eyes exactly how the man would crash and burn—and then, before the show had even started, the guy had hurled himself into the gutter of his own accord. For Han Kanghee, there could be no sweeter, more perfect side dish for his drink.

Just then, as Han Kanghee laughed in contentment, a woman drifted into his field of vision. Someone oddly adrift amid the rowdy revelry—the main writer of Suspect X, Seong Yura. Even as the meat blackened and charred right in front of her, she was staring fixedly at nothing but the smartphone screen in her hand.

Is she seriously revising the script at her own wrap party?

Tilting his head, Han Kanghee raised his glass and sidled up beside her.

"Haha! Writer Seong. What's got you so engrossed? Don't tell me you're editing the script even here?"

He'd tossed it out as a light joke, but Seong Yura murmured flatly, without lifting her gaze a single inch from the screen.

"It's the making-of video from tvM's script reading that got released yesterday."

"Huh? Why on earth would you watch that? It got leaked with the Baek Kangmin story and the network surely scrubbed it all offline."

"Which is why I downloaded it before it came down. I figured I ought to see it at least once."

"Honestly, the drama's already collapsing on its own, and you're still doing analysis? So? How is it? Worth watching?"

Han Kanghee burst out laughing in disbelief, but Seong Yura's face was dead serious. No—past serious. Her expression carried an unmistakable undercurrent of shock and dread.

"...Cha Yerin and Choi Taekyung. I knew they'd live up to their names."

Seong Yura swallowed dryly.

"But the second male lead here. Baek Kangmin's acting is genuinely unbelievable."

"Baek Kangmin's?"

"Yes. The character itself is incredibly three-dimensional. He's clearly the second lead, but the camera locks onto him several times harder than the main one. The dialogue is wonderfully elastic to begin with, and the way the actor carries it—his diction, his energy—is remarkably captivating."

From the standpoint of a fellow writer, the cast of Living with an Ex-Boyfriend by Chance was, quite simply, an ideal ensemble.

Only a slight exaggeration to say the characters on the page seemed genuinely alive and breathing. But Han Kanghee only snorted at her words.

"So what of it? He's already gone straight to hell over a drunk hit-and-run."

"That much is true."

Seong Yura nodded heavily. The actor flickering on her screen, so vividly alive, was about to be buried once and for all by the industry. And at the same time, the blow tvM had taken from losing Baek Kangmin was sure to be devastating. Naturally, a chilling thought began to bloom in a corner of her mind.

What if...

What if Baek Kangmin hadn't dropped out? What if tvM had gone head-to-head with them, exactly as they were, with that insane cast and that script? Could they have won?

...I honestly don't know.

It was a form so formidable that even she, an A-list writer in the industry, couldn't confidently claim the upper hand. So how was she supposed to describe this situation? If anything, she felt a flicker of regret over a rival's downfall—and, at the same time, relief.

"Come on now, no point worrying about things that are over. Let's just focus on firmly stomping out those Noose guys over at MBS."

"Mmm, right."

"Haha. Besides, in this business, luck is skill. Those tvM bastards were doomed from the very beginning."

Luck is skill.

No sentence in existence cut closer to the truth of the drama industry. Seong Yura accepted the glass he offered and nodded, if only half-heartedly.

"......"

"......"

A ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠perfect silence, so total that not even the sound of breathing remained. From Director Woo Youngtaek behind the camera to the assistant directors, the dozens of staff members, and the actors waiting on standby—everyone on set, as if bound by an unspoken pact, was staring blankly at the center of the set. At the end of their gaze stood the second male lead, Han Taeyoon—or rather, the seven-year-unknown actor, Do Jaehyun.

"I... I held it in, you know. I hated, I hated letting you see me like this—so pathetic. But this? This is crossing the line."

A scene in which he clung desperately to the female lead, spilling out his long-suppressed anguish. The classic playbook of the second male lead—an emotional line where sorrow and desperation crossed paths. But ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠for all that it was called the standard playbook, it was, quite frankly, a punishingly difficult performance to pull off. Push too hard and it turned endlessly cringeworthy or contrived; pull back and it became neither one thing nor the other.

Gulp!

The assistant director, glued to the monitor, swallowed without realizing it.

Right—honestly, a performance that threw caution to the wind and shattered spectacularly would be a hundred times better. That kind of acting resolves itself, forcibly if nothing else, so long as you hurl everything into the emotion. But falling apart beautifully? Almost no one can do that. It's not a territory you can conquer just by having a good face.

Explosion and restraint. He had to be desperate yet composed. Wretched without ever becoming pathetic. Pitiable yet magnetic. A direction that defied all reason. And yet the unknown actor before them was walking that impossibly delicate tightrope, balancing it flawlessly.

"What...? You got tired of playing with me, is that it? Then you shouldn't have given me hope in the first place. Why do you keep making an idiot out of me, and me alone?"

A voice that trembled in intermittent waves. A furrowed, contorted brow. And yet his diction struck the ear with pinpoint clarity, and even his ragged breathing and the faint tremor in his fingertips felt meticulously, exhaustively calculated.

Staff members sat speechless, suffocating under the sheer immersive pull of it. And that overwhelming performance swallowed up even the opposing actor inside the frame, the one who'd been trading scenes with him.

"Th-that's not... I..."

Cha Yerin, playing the female lead Min Ayoung. She stumbled halfway through her line and then, in the end, shut her mouth entirely. Do Jaehyun's intensity had steamrolled her; she'd forgotten her own lines and frozen stiff.

"Ah..."

"Cut! Missed line for Min Ayoung—taking it from the top!"

Director Woo Youngtaek, catching the panic on Cha Yerin's face, hastily called the cut. Only then did the taut tension that had been crushing the set snap clean through.

"I-I'm so sorry. I lost the emotion for a moment. We'll go again right away!"

A seasoned veteran, Cha Yerin flushed crimson and rushed to apologize, utterly flustered. On any other day, the atmosphere would have turned icy—but not a single person on that set blamed her for the slip. No, truthfully, her NG wasn't even on their radar.

A brief reset. The staff's eyes all poured toward the corner of the set, where Do Jaehyun was catching his ragged breath.

"Hey, did you see that? What is that guy? How is he acting that well?"

"Whoa... I got chills watching the monitor just now. You saw Cha Yerin flub it from shock, right? Is he really the extra guy? The one who was a background performer?"

"I'm telling you, from about the middle of the take I couldn't see Cha Yerin at all. My eyes kept going straight back to Han Taeyoon."

"Honestly? When I heard he was Baek Kangmin's replacement, I expected absolutely nothing. But that trembling breakdown inside the camera frame just now was insane. When this airs, there's going to be a truckload of girls catching second-lead syndrome. Guaranteed."

A no-name stopgap, rushed in to fill the crater Baek Kangmin had blown open on his way out. An actor no one had held a speck of expectation for—yet instead of being crushed under a top star, he had swallowed her scenes whole, and no one could quite wrap their heads around it. And the person hit hardest of all was cinematographer Heo Jinman, who'd captured Do Jaehyun's performance from closer than anyone.

"Unbelievable..."

Heo Jinman let out a hollow laugh as he studied Do Jaehyun's close-up shots replaying on the monitor.

"He knows how to play inside the frame. Haah—like they say, you just can't beat the naturally gifted."

"Hyung."

Just as he was muttering to himself, unsure whether he was marveling or lamenting, Director Woo Youngtaek slipped quietly up beside him and handed over a worn, thick notebook.

"...? What's this?"

"Open it."

Heo Jinman unfolded the notebook with a puzzled look. And the very next instant, his eyes flew wide, ready to split at the seams.

"....."

The inside of that notebook was filled with something close to madness—an obsessive, all-consuming thoroughness. The web of relationships between characters and the shifting emotional lines of each scene were only the basics. The hidden intent buried in every single line of dialogue—the subtext—was dissected in meticulous red-ink annotations.

That wasn't all. His blocking through the set, the high and low of camera angles, how to hold his gaze toward the lens, the angle of his head—all of it was obsessively charted out in arrows and diagrams. And even fine-grained visual and physical detail like: Mid-dialogue—hold breath for 0.5 seconds, fingertips trembling faintly, fix gaze so the tear forms only in the right eye.

Contents so analytical, so surgical, they raised the hair on your neck. This wasn't mere script analysis—it was closer to a blueprint for sculpting an entire frame from raw material.

"What the hell kind of person is this writer? The script wasn't enough, so they wrote an acting direction notebook this obsessive? And what advice did they give this actor that his performance transformed overnight?"

"Kwahaha."

"Hoo. Honestly, I can't decide whether to call this guy a pervert or a genius."

At Heo Jinman's incredulous clicking of his tongue, Woo Youngtaek smirked and spoke up.

"Hyung, that's not the writer's notebook."

"What?"

"The writer didn't write a word of it. Apparently it belongs to that guy—our seven-year unknown over there."

"...??"

Heo Jinman froze mid-motion.

"Wh-what the hell are you saying? So this is his? This... this thing?"

"Heh, hard to believe, right? Trust me, I was floored too."

Talent? Not even close. That man had spent seven years grinding through the unknown, doing this insane ritual every single day without fail. All while playing bit characters that no one else would spare a glance for.

Woo Youngtaek gazed at Do Jaehyun, awestruck—and then a single question drifted through his mind. His eyes followed, quite naturally, toward one man.

"No, seriously—how are you this good?"

"S-sorry?"

"I said, how are you this good? I really didn't see it coming from you, Jaehyun."

"Ahaha... thank you. It's all thanks to the writer. Truly."

"No, no, that's not what I mean."

A man approaching the thoroughly flushed Do Jaehyun and pressing him, deadpan. The very architect of this mad tableau—the main writer of the drama, Ji Yeonwoo.

...What on earth did the writer see in him?

A completely unvetted unknown actor, plucked in an instant from among hundreds of background performers. When everyone had cried that he'd lost his mind and fought him tooth and nail, he'd rammed Do Jaehyun into the second male lead slot of a tentpole drama with sheer, unshakable stubbornness.

"I genuinely don't know what to make of that man."

"I suppose rolling around under Seo Eunhye trains your eye for actors too, huh..."

"This is honestly my first time seeing anything like it, so it doesn't even feel real. The man's eye for people is a ghost. An actual ghost."

"Tell me about it. Honestly, I was skeptical at first too, but now I've got full-body chills. How do you spot a monster like that in one pass and pull him out of the pile?"

Writer Ji Yeonwoo—who had seen through everything and flipped the board entirely.

Before anyone noticed, the eyes of everyone watching him were trembling faintly with awe.

Over at tvM's Drama Bureau, department head Ha Doun was, in a word, burning up with anxiety.

"Why the hell won't this bastard pick up his phone!"

Ha Doun roared himself hoarse. The PDs seated at the nearby desks ducked their heads sharply, anxious not to catch the shrapnel.

"Damn it all!"

Hours now. Dozens of calls dialed, and all Woo Youngtaek's phone produced was the same recorded message, over and over.

"That son of a bitch! Now he's gone completely rogue?!"

tvM's Drama Bureau was currently in a state of full-blown crisis. Just losing Baek Kangmin, the linchpin lead of their do-or-die second-half tentpole Living with an Ex-Boyfriend by Chance, to a drunk hit-and-run was already a migraine—but the follow-up report from the set had nearly knocked Ha Doun unconscious.

Who the hell is Do Jaehyun?!

Word was they'd jammed some unknown, wet-behind-the-ears nobody in as Baek Kangmin's replacement and pushed ahead with filming anyway. The sheer absurdity of it made Ha Doun doubt his own ears.

An actor by the name of Do Jaehyun.

He'd searched every portal site—not a profile, not a trace, nothing. And this rootless unknown had been seated in a lead-tier role on a tentpole drama, the kind where a broadcaster's very best capital gets poured in? Did that make a single ounce of sense?

"That bastard needs to be picky about how he goes insane! What the hell is he trying to do right now?!"

He felt like his blood was running backward. He wanted to shut the set down on the spot, but Woo Youngtaek seemed to have anticipated that— he'd cut off all outside contact entirely. Which only made the question burn hotter.

What in God's name was happening on that set?

Where had this Do Jaehyun character even crawled out from, and who had the sheer gall to slot him in? No—were they even filming with him at all? There was no way the staff would just stand by and watch that spectacle while letting the shoot proceed. And so, as question after question devoured its own tail and a parade of ghastly imaginings gnawed away at Ha Doun's sanity—

"Sir! The bureau chief is calling for you! He says to be in the main conference room within thirty minutes!"

"Son of a... I'm losing my mind."

Given the nature of the matter, this was serious. Tae Sanhyuk, the supreme power of the broadcasting station, had summoned an emergency meeting over this lead-actor replacement, and he'd been sharpening his knives for it. This could not stand. If Ha Doun walked into that conference room with no grasp of the situation whatsoever, he'd end up on the chopping block right alongside Woo Youngtaek—that much was certain.

Gnawing at his lip in mounting agitation, Ha Doun picked up his smartphone yet again. Pick up, please, please. He dialed Woo Youngtaek's number, praying inwardly a thousand times over.

Riiing—!

"...?"

Miraculously, from a phone he'd assumed would be dead, a ringing tone began to sound. And before it had even rung a third time—

—Yes, sir.

Woo Youngtaek's voice drifted through the receiver, impossibly calm. The moment Ha Doun heard it, every ounce of his suppressed fury detonated.

"Hey, you lunatic!! Where the hell are you right now!!!"

—Whoa, why are you suddenly screaming? My ear.

Squeezing his eyes shut and open again, Ha Doun fired off like a machine gun.

"Are you in your right mind?! They're saying you shoved some nameless extra in as Baek Kangmin's replacement! What in God's name is going on over there on that set?!"

Despite the torrent of abuse from the bellowing Ha Doun, the Woo Youngtaek on the other end of the line was eerily composed. If anything, he carried the leisurely air of a man about to start humming a tune.

—Ah come on, don't worry your head about it, sir. Filming wrapped up brilliantly—absolutely flawlessly—and I'm in the editing suite right now.

"Ed-ed-EDITING SUITE?! Have you lost your entire mind?!"

Hundred won to no won, he had heard correctly: in the middle of this emergency, the man was lounging in the editing suite.

"Why are you in there?! You haven't heard?! An emergency meeting just got called! Why aren't you sprinting to my office with a situation report right this second?!"

—Yes yes, I know. I was just informed.

"Then what the—! You knew and you're over there doing what, exactly? Don't you realize the bureau chief himself is summoning you?!"

—That's exactly it.

Woo Youngtaek let out a light, airy chuckle.

—Can't very well walk in empty-handed, can I? A man's got to bring his cards to the table if he wants to deal with the bureau chief.

"What? What cards?"

—Yes, sir. The polished cut of today's footage just came out of the edit. I'm going to sweep the bureau chief right off his feet with it.

Ha Doun could only blink, his face gone entirely blank.

Woo Youngtaek. Had the bastard finally, truly gone insane?

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