Get Me That Writer, Now! (6)

When Woo Youngtaek finished his call and pushed back into the room, his eyes went immediately—inevitably—to Ji Yeonwoo's face.

...Oh no.

Only moments ago, Ji Yeonwoo had landed a gloriously satisfying blow on his former boss, Department Head Han Kanghee, and wrangled a premium hanwoo upgrade out of him in the process. An unmistakably smug smile now bloomed across his lips.

And at the sight of that smile, Woo Youngtaek's face froze solid.

Did things go well with SBC? Don't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠tell me it's already decided.

Licking his bone-dry lips, Woo Youngtaek carefully settled into the seat across the table. Ji Yeonwoo's gaze, which had been glued to the meat sizzling on the grill, drifted lazily up toward him.

"Oh, you're back."

"Sorry about that. Something urgent came up."

"Not at all. Let's eat before it burns."

Ji Yeonwoo lovingly laid the newly arrived, beautifully marbled chuck roll onto the grill. With a cheerful sizzle, the nutty aroma of searing fat filled the room.

But Woo Youngtaek spent the entire time the meat cooked fidgeting and stealing anxious glances at Ji Yeonwoo, chopsticks untouched, nothing but the swallowing of his own saliva for company.

"...."

He was just working up the courage to break the silence when—

"Oh, PD-nim. You said the final round of judging for the contest runs through the day after tomorrow, right?"

"...? Yes. Yes, that's right."

It would weigh on my conscience to eat all this expensive hanwoo and then walk out empty-handed.

Ji Yeonwoo cleared his throat and set down his chopsticks.

"In that case, I'll send you the rest of episodes three and four by tomorrow."

"...!?"

Woo Youngtaek's expression went slack with disbelief. He clearly could not process what he'd just heard.

"W-wait, Writer. You mean to say... you're going to continue with our contest?"

"Yes. That's right."

Woo Youngtaek's mind went completely white. One stamp on a contract and Ji Yeonwoo would become the head writer of a 30-billion-won tent-pole project, with a signing bonus of tens of millions to boot. So why on earth would he bother submitting the next script to a contest with its tedious procedures? What kind of hidden agenda was this?

And then, a short meal later, Ji Yeonwoo rose from his seat.

"Well, I'll be off. Thanks for the meal."

"...."

"T-take care, Writer-nim!"

After Ji Yeonwoo departed with unhurried grace, Assistant PD Ahn Jiyoung tentatively poked the still-dazed Woo Youngtaek.

"PD Woo... he's not about to go sign with SBC, is he...?"

"...."

Woo Youngtaek offered no answer, only a low groan. Then, abruptly, he let out a short, exasperated laugh.

"Haah... this writer. He's worse than Seo Eunhye."

"I'm sorry?"

With a wry chuckle, Woo Youngtaek added, "SBC? Not even worth worrying about."

"Why not?"

"Because right now SBC is in exactly the same boat we are. If anything, they're probably sweating it even more than we are."

Still visibly lost, Ahn Jiyoung got a confident, matter-of-fact explanation.

"Episodes three and four are bait. And a kind of showcase, too."

"I'm sorry... what do you mean?"

Woo Youngtaek drained the glass of ice water on the table and wetted his cracked lips.

"Ji Yeonwoo is showing us his hand. As if to say, this is the hand I'm holding—and you tried to pin me down with terms like THAT?"

"...!?"

The quality of episodes three and four was guaranteed to be spectacular; no preview needed. And he would toss that overwhelming product onto the laps of both tvM and SBC. What happens next? Like clockwork, the two networks would go to war with even fiercer bids than before—and every escalation would drive the writer's price up in real time. It was almost impossible to believe anyone had calculated and engineered this far ahead.

"Haah... so this is where he outdoes his teacher. Nastier than Seo Eunhye herself."

They had set out to land a prize catch named Ji Yeonwoo—but that had been a delusion all along. From the very beginning, the fish were tvM and SBC, and which of the two he chose to bite was entirely the writer's prerogative.

All the way out of the restaurant and back toward home, I walked with my head tilted in puzzlement.

"Am I actually... talented?"

Apparently the thing I'd thrown into an open contest had passed the second round of judging. That heap of typewritten garbage that wasn't even fit to call a practice piece. Sure, it would obviously get cut in the finals, but still—making it to the second round was something, wasn't it?

"Hmm. Maybe I should try being a full-time writer."

Walking in the cool night air, I could feel delusions of grandeur creeping in. Whatever—worst case, I could just write one of those web novels everyone's into these days. But I soon burst out laughing at myself and shook my head.

"Nah. If I'm going to write, I might as well start a YouTube channel."

It was a fluke, a lucky fluke of a fluke—what business did I have pretending to be a professional writer? Better to keep quietly scribbling as a hobby, like I always had. Get carried away by false confidence and open my big mouth, and I'd end up flat on my face. And so, ruthlessly sweeping away the fantasies rising like steam, I resumed my aimless walk home.

Bee-dee-dee-deet— clack.

I unlocked the door and stepped inside—and froze mid-step. The apartment, which should have been dark, blazed with light, and on the living-room sofa sat a strangely familiar back of a head.

"What the hell. Why are you in my apartment?"

It was my little sister, Ji Seoyun. Without so much as lifting her eyes from the papers in her lap, she answered with magnificent indifference.

"Oh? Hi, Oppa. You're home early."

"Skip the pleasantries. Why are you in my apartment?"

"Agh~ I'm apartment hunting, remember? I'm staying here until I find a place."

What is this shamelessness? Anyone walking in would think I was the tenant and she the landlord.

"Are you insane? Who said you could? Get out. Now."

"Oh come on, there are two rooms and you're hoarding them like a miser anyway. I seriously have nowhere else to go. You want your little sister sleeping in the street?"

"Yeah, honestly, that sounds better. Go camp outside. With a face like yours, you'll at least scrape together bus fare from panhandling."

"Fine, then I'll panhandle right here. Your charity is appreciated, kind sir~!"

Watching her flop brazenly onto the sofa, I realized kicking her out on the spot was a lost cause. Pinching the bridge of my throbbing nose, I reluctantly nodded.

"Haah... Fine. Only until you find a room. Trash the place and you're out."

"Woohoo!"

Ji Seoyun whooped and sprang upright.

"By the way, Oppa, what's with you being home at this hour? Did you take a half day?"

"No. I quit."

"...?"

Ji Seoyun's eyes went round as a rabbit's, her face pure confusion. Oh, right—I'd never told her about quitting. To be fair, given how little we usually kept in touch, I'd never felt the need to announce it.

"Are you nuts? You're seriously deranged, Oppa. You were so close to promotion and you couldn't hang in there? Why?"

"...Don't ask. It's a painful story."

After a moment of open horror, she ruffled her own hair into a bird's nest and let out a deep sigh.

"Haah. Still, I'm jealous. God, I want to quit too."

Our family had, for generations, been in the broadcast business. No doubt that lineage had something to do with me becoming a PD at a network. Ji Seoyun, likewise, dreamed of directing dramas. As I heard it, she'd joined some production company last year as a planning-and-production PD, though I couldn't for the life of me remember which one. And yet here she was already whining—apparently she wasn't fated to survive this industry any longer than I had.

"You haven't even lasted a year and you're already talking about quitting. With a spine that soft, you couldn't even handle a convenience-store shift, kid."

"Ugh, screw you, what do you know! Our company is in full crisis mode right now, it's brutal! I've worked overtime every single ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠day for a week straight!"

"Crisis?"

As I asked, shrugging off my jacket, Ji Seoyun started hammering the cushion she was hugging with her fists, working herself up.

"The director—that absolute lunatic—had an affair! A married man with a wife and kids! And now the whole shoot's about to get shut down because of it!"

"Huh? Just because of that?"

Look, an affair is a serious moral problem, but hardly the kind of thing that should blow up an entire drama. And it wasn't even a lead actor—it was the director. In this business, the usual play was to hush it up or swap him out fast and keep rolling. Right on cue, an even bigger bombshell dropped from Ji Seoyun's mouth.

"The person he was having the affair with? The head writer."

"...?"

"And get this—she's married too. A matched set of lunatics."

"...Oof. A two-way affair."

Unbelievable. The drama's director and head writer had been starring in their own spectacular, train-wreck makjang production this whole time.

"Ugh, it was chaos. Just now the director's wife AND the writer's husband both showed up and tore the station apart. It was carnage."

"Sounds riveting. Go on, give me more details."

"Is this FUNNY to you? Is it?"

"...Sorry."

"Anyway, the higher-ups keep squeezing us to find a relief pitcher to fill the collapsed timeslot. It's driving me up the wall."

"So all that paper piled up over there is drama scripts?"

I jerked my chin toward the towering stacks of paper beside the sofa. So that was why the format looked familiar—scripts and synopses, all of them.

"Yep. Proposals scraped together from various writers as stopgap material. Reading through all of that cost me a full night's sleep."

"Why would you brute-force read every single one? Skim a few, call it done."

"You think I don't WANT to?! Our department head keeps screeching about 'quality' and losing his mind!"

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Ji Seoyun, bouncing around in a full fury, suddenly seemed to remember something and cried out urgently.

"Oh, right! I still have to check the scripts that came in by email. Let me borrow your laptop."

"What? Where's yours?"

"Mine won't boot—something's busted. Just for tonight, come on, lend it to me. Please?"

She clasped her hands together in mock misery, beaming pleading eyes at me. My lips wavered as I weighed it briefly. Scattered through those folders, defenselessly exposed, lay every script I'd ever scribbled, all my half-baked practice files.

Hmm. It'll probably be fine.

It wasn't like she'd go digging for them, and they hardly qualified as trade secrets. Besides, with a crisis this massive dropping on her company, it would be heartless to say no.

"You will let me borrow it, right? Right?"

"It's over there. Use it and put it back where you found it. Don't touch whatever you feel like, and if you install anything weird, you're dead."

"Woohoo! Thank you! What would I do without my Oppa! Oh, and—since we're on the subject—you know a bunch of writers, don't you?"

"...? What do you mean—"

With those words, the bouncing Ji Seoyun turned her head toward me. And in her eyes, a desperate, pleading gleam bloomed. Somehow, it made my skin crawl.

"Pleeease~ if you happen to know a writer with a good script, just let me know~ it's for the greater good~"

"Yeah. Get lost."

BANG!

I darted into my room and slammed the lock shut. Immediately, the roar of a wild beast came through the door, but I let it wash right past me.

—You little rat! What kind of brother can't even do this much for his little sister?! How hard can it possibly be!

Ugh. That one still hasn't finished evolving into a human being.

2:40 a.m.

The unlit living room glowed with nothing but the pale blue light spilling from the laptop monitor.

"Aaagh... I'm dying..."

Ji Seoyun groaned, rubbing her gritty, sandpaper-dry eyes. She'd already downed three cups of coffee, and it was nowhere near enough to chase away the mountain of material. Worse still, the real problem was something else entirely.

There is nothing usable in here...!

She'd plowed through every proposal and script piled up in her inbox, and not a single one was worth salvaging. What now? If she showed up to work empty-handed, she'd catch the full force of that department head's lion-roar screeching about 'quality.' That much was certain.

"Haah... okay, what do I do. Maybe Writer Kim will be different, at least."

The last remaining candidate: Writer Kim Myeonghwan. Frankly, his career had been in a nosedive lately, so she wasn't holding out hope. Ji Seoyun mindlessly downloaded the attachments Writer Kim had sent from her webmail window.

"Seriously, why do writers all name their files like this? How is anyone supposed to know which one is the ACTUAL final?"

Plenty of the other writers' submissions had similarly chaotic filenames, which made sorting them a nightmare. And Writer Kim had the extra-annoying habit of omitting even the title of the work entirely, adding a fresh layer of exhaustion.

"Ugh, whatever. I'll just open everything with 'final' in the name."

Click!

The first script she opened was, predictably, mediocre. Nothing glaringly wrong, but nothing interesting either—Kim Myeonghwan's signature style in its purest form. Her interest died ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠within seconds, and she closed the window between heavy sighs.

"Sigh. No growth from Writer Kim. Same tired patterns every time. Cut, from my end."

Her already rock-bottom expectations plunged straight through the floor and into the mantle below. Yawning with indifference, she double-clicked another file in the folder: [Untitled_ForRealForRealForRealFinal.hwp].

"Huh? He wrote a whole separate thing in a different genre?"

Even that stirred nothing in her numb heart. If anything, it just felt like more work.

"Ugh, seriously. Write ONE thing properly and send it. Why split your effort across two scripts at the cost of quality?"

Exactly ten pages. No—she resolved to give it five. If it didn't pass muster by then, straight to the recycle bin. She turned the first page.

Click, click!

For a long while, the only sound in the silent living room was the click of the mouse. But then, a few minutes in, the clicking stopped as if a ghost had frozen her hand.

"...."

She stared at the screen, forgetting even to turn the page. By the time she'd read the same spread two, three times over, her mouth was slowly falling open.

"Holy crap... is this actually written by Writer Kim?"

It was the polar opposite of the script she'd read minutes ago—a crushing, irresistible pull. The stylish prose, the breathless pacing. Only the genre had changed—how could the gap be THIS wide? What kind of divine inspiration had detonated between 'Real Real Final' and 'For-Real-For-Real-For-Real Final' to transform the caliber of the writing entirely?

This was on a completely different plane from the endless stream of forgettable scripts she'd been drowning in. Even that nitpicking, tantrum-throwing department head would welcome this with both arms raised. No—with this, the collapsed timeslot was as good as filled.

"Wow... so writers really do have genres they're just born for. Who knew Writer Kim had this kind of talent buried inside him."

With trembling hands that she barely managed to steady, Ji Seoyun reverently copied the file onto her USB drive. A flawless script without a single crease to be found. A script for which everything—absolutely everything—would have been perfect, if only its author hadn't been her own brother.

© Nuriyong#1j8ui