Chapter 15
At CEO Lee Juyeon’s words, writer Choi Yujin took the phone she had been handed and began watching the film.
The title of the short film was Dream.
Even before she started watching, all of Choi Yujin’s attention had already been fixed on it.
And for good reason.
Two seventeen-year-olds had filmed the final performance of the legendary actor Gam Ihyeon. That should have been enormous news throughout the industry. It was almost unbelievable that she—who had wept so bitterly at Gam Ihyeon’s funeral—hadn’t heard about it until now. It even made her wonder if she had been hiding away from the world for far longer than she’d realized.
Without taking her eyes off the screen even once, without letting a single stray thought enter her mind, Choi Yujin sat there and watched the entire film from beginning to end.
Gam Ihyeon was extraordinary.
That razor-sharp energy. Choi Yujin found herself thinking that if she had been born in the same generation as Gam Ihyeon, she would have written at least one male lead specifically for that actor in her lifetime.
But standing opposite that sharp energy was a boy like flowing water.
Naturally, white and transparency are not the same thing.
White can be painted over with anything.
Transparency cannot be painted over by anything.
Water so clear that its depth could never be measured.
You could see straight through to the bottom, yet never know where that bottom truly lay.
A boy who could become either a god or a devil.
A religious leader or a soldier.
That kind of actor.
When the twelve-minute short film finally ended, Choi Yujin turned to Lee Juyeon.
“Get in touch with this actor. As soon as possible.”
“I told you to answer your phone in the first place… Leaders has been showing this film around for quite a while now. His schedule might already be full.”
“Lee, who am I?”
“Oh, right. You’re Choi Yujin.”
“Okay. I’ll call them immediately.”
As Lee Juyeon stood up while already dialing the number, Choi Yujin remained seated, watching Lee Huiyun on her own phone one more time before calling after her.
“Lee! If there’s a cancellation fee, tell them I’ll pay it myself!”
Lee Juyeon simply gave her an OK sign with her fingers.
Woo Woongbae’s short film Dream became an even bigger sensation than expected.
The video Woo Woongbae uploaded to YouTube surpassed one hundred thousand views in just two days and continued climbing steadily afterward. For a short film, the response was remarkable.
More importantly, regardless of the view count, I heard that Gam Ihyeon’s final film had become a major topic of conversation within the industry. Our company worked hard to capitalize on the attention.
As a result, quite a few casting offers came in.
Educational workbook commercials.
Promotional videos for singers.
Most of them were simply extensions of the work I’d done as a child actor.
Still, no worthwhile scripts had arrived yet.
It couldn’t really be helped.
I was still too young even for school dramas.
I could barely fit the age range for web dramas, but since the company hadn’t found any projects they really liked, they suggested we wait a little longer.
I agreed.
We temporarily stopped searching for the mastermind.
Both Woo Woongbae and I agreed that finding them right now was impossible.
“It’s like quantum mechanics,” Woo Woongbae said. “Before you observe something, you can’t determine whether it exists or not. But since you’re unable to observe it, then as far as you’re concerned… it might as well not exist.”
I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.
What mattered was that every attempt to search for the mastermind left my health in terrible condition. At this rate, I’d die before reaching thirty-two.
Woo Woongbae insisted that the one I was looking for would inevitably reveal themselves someday.
“When?”
I asked.
“When you meet them as your co-star on a film set.”
“Why then?”
“Because that’s the moment when the actor disappears, leaving only the role—the character.”
It sounded convincing enough.
So I accepted it.
I was honestly amazed by how understanding Woo Woongbae was. He simply accepted the fact that there was one particular human being I couldn’t recognize.
Then he declared that I really needed to start reading manga.
“That’s where you’ll learn tolerance and understanding of the world.”
According to him, he was already thinking of a way for me to recognize that existence.
Fortunately, he seemed ridiculously excited about it.
After finishing the short film, he’d been looking somewhat drained, but now he’d found something new to obsess over.
That was probably a good thing.
President Gam Seongbeom came to my school one autumn afternoon while I was eating lunch.
Following his order to come outside immediately, I left the school and got into the car.
Inside were Do Jaeyeon and Vice President Gam Suhan.
Oddly enough, they were all dressed in extremely formal attire.
The two of them made sense.
But seeing President Gam Seongbeom—a man who usually insisted on wearing loud graphic T-shirts—wearing an ordinary suit felt bizarre.
“Did someone swindle you out of money?”
I asked.
Do Jaeyeon, who knew the company’s finances better than anyone, answered first.
“I wish we had enough money to get swindled.”
“Our company is dirt poor.”
“I’d usually deny that, but she’s right.”
“We’re broke.”
Even President Gam Seongbeom nodded in agreement before muttering as he drove,
“And for a company like ours, today is a life-or-death moment, Huiyun.”
“And I’m the one who’s supposed to solve it?”
“That’s right!”
“It’s all riding on your shoulders!”
“Then at least tell me what’s going on.”
“Sorry. They specifically told me to bring you in without contaminating you with any information.”
What the heck was that supposed to mean?
I was grumbling in annoyance when President Gam Seongbeom spoke dramatically.
“Huiyun. Listen carefully.”
“I’m already listening.”
“…Anyway.”
“Just hurry up and say it.”
“Writer Choi Yujin wants to cast you.”
Choi Yujin.
The moment I heard those three syllables, I froze.
Then I quietly shut my mouth and obediently continued the ride.
If someone asked me which writer I most wanted to work with, there wasn’t even anything to think about.
It was Choi Yujin.
Over the years, Choi Yujin had created countless hit dramas.
Among them were dramas influential enough to define an entire year.
To look back on a year and call it the year of a particular drama was something almost dreamlike.
Those kinds of dramas didn’t appear every year.
Ordinary smash hits were one thing.
But the greatest drama of a year was something created by fate.
No director, production company, or writer could simply decide to make one.
Even so…
There were directors, production companies, and writers who possessed something close to fate itself.
The power to consistently create massive hits.
Choi Yujin was one of those people.
“Please don’t act like a brat.”
“Be polite.”
“You know that, right?”
“Don’t put your hands in your pockets.”
“I’ll chop your hands off.”
President Gam Seongbeom and Do Jaeyeon took turns lecturing me.
Vice President Gam Suhan, startled by the phrase “chop your hands off,” immediately covered my ears.
I’d grown used to this trio by now.
Soon afterward, we arrived at Cheongcheon Studio.
Including CEO Lee Juyeon and writer Choi Yujin, everyone from Cheongcheon Studio, the three people from Leaders Actors, and I all chatted together in an incredibly friendly atmosphere.
It was so relaxed that it hardly felt like a business meeting.
Probably because I was still a teenager.
Then Lee Juyeon began explaining the drama they wanted to cast me in.
The atmosphere suddenly became strangely disorganized.
“So… the proposal isn’t finished yet.”
“Our Huiyun is really becoming the hottest topic these days.”
“We just wanted to claim him before someone else snatched him away.”
“Anyway, what we’re making is… you know all those vampire movies.”
“There’ve been tons of successful ones overseas.”
Normally, when someone opened a pitch with so little confidence, every talent agency in the room would immediately think,
There’s definitely a catch.
Normally.
But this was Choi Yujin.
No matter how absurd the introduction sounded, everyone listened attentively.
“So, basically…”
“Of course, our writer…”
“You all know her.”
“She’s not the kind of person who stirs up controversy.”
“So…”
“It’s about religious conflict.”
“But we’re going to hide that part perfectly.”
“So you don’t have to worry.”
…Wow.
Even as someone who admired Choi Yujin, that explanation was…
Too much.
If even I hesitated after hearing Lee Juyeon’s explanation, it was only natural that the people from Leaders Actors looked completely bewildered.
Vampires from outer space fighting Earth’s vampires was ridiculous enough.
Now the reason they fought was supposedly religious conflict?
How was any of that supposed to make sense?
Still…
Something felt strange.
Before returning to the past, I had watched every single one of Choi Yujin’s dramas.
Not one had escaped me.
I’d even watched some of them three or more times.
Yet I couldn’t remember any drama with a premise this outrageous.
A synopsis like this would be impossible to forget.
Which meant either…
This project had never been produced.
Or…
It had changed dramatically.
Slowly, I retraced every Choi Yujin drama I’d ever watched.
A drama featuring a seventeen-year-old version of me would have aired nearly twenty years before I died.
It wasn’t strange that my memory had become hazy.
As I worked backward from her most recent dramas…
I suddenly shot to my feet.
“Ah!”
Everyone in the conference room turned toward me.
I couldn’t help it.
The setting had changed that much?
No…
This was how they were explaining it?
While I stood there in shock, Do Jaeyeon hurriedly covered for me.
“He collapsed not long ago.”
“He hasn’t fully recovered yet, so he does that sometimes.”
It had actually been months since I’d collapsed, but Do Jaeyeon desperately tried to smooth over my strange behavior.
I looked straight at Choi Yujin.
“I’ll do it.”
“I really want to.”
“I don’t care what role it is.”
“Please cast me.”
At my enthusiastic response, Choi Yujin, who had been scanning my profile, nodded.
Then she picked it up, stood immediately, and said to Lee Juyeon,
“He says he’ll do it.”
“Then I’m going back to work.”
After shaking hands with the three people from Leaders Actors, she left.
The trio all turned toward me.
Their eyes clearly asked,
Have you lost your mind?
And then, just as I expected…
The devil spoke again.
[Well, well. What a surprise.]
Ugh.
There it goes again.
Ignoring the devil’s nonsense as I had grown accustomed to doing, the real message finally appeared.
[With this choice,]
[the acceleration of ‘The Downfall of Leaders Actors’ has stopped.]
[‘The Downfall of Leaders Actors’ will now proceed at its original pace.]
Just as I thought.
I could say it with certainty.
I was absolutely sure.
This drama would be a massive success.
Thirty-five million views on OTT during the year it was released.
And influence throughout South Korea that couldn’t possibly be measured by viewership numbers alone.
Without question…
It would become the drama of 2027.
