The bus filled up with the gear and the people it needed, stopping at the broadcaster and a few other places on the way.
Somewhere in there, the seat beside Tae-il filled up too.
"H-hello."
The lighting team's youngest crew member sat down carefully beside Tae-il and bowed his head, eyes shaking.
'Ah, hell...... and this is the only seat left. They say if Eun Tae-il gets his teeth into you, you're finished.'
He had heard about Eun Tae-il's reputation from the seniors on his team until he was sick of it.
Using his manager's hand as a spittoon. Changing stylists three times a week. On and on......
Don't get bitten for nothing, keep clear if you can. The advice filled his head.
"H-haha......"
The kid smiled as hard as he could and shifted his body toward the aisle so as not to touch Tae-il.
Whether or not he knew what was going on in the kid's head, Tae-il spoke.
"You can sit properly, you know."
"N-no, it's fine! I'm, I'm comfortable!"
Anyone could see the kid was afraid of him.
However broke Eun Tae-il might be now, to a rookie who knew nothing he was still a brat of a celebrity.
Tae-il turned to the kid, and his eyes caught a small light.
"What's your name?"
"K-Kim Byeong-tae."
"Ah. Byeong-tae. So you're under Director Shin on the lighting team."
"Oh, yes! You know our boss too, Tae-il."
KVS's daily and weekend dramas were always handled by Director Shin's lighting team.
Director Shin's team had worked with KVS a long time and carried weight.
The skill matched the years, naturally.
"Director Shin is especially good with light on a night shoot. That's exactly why PD Song likes him so much."
"Oh! The older guys told me! I'm still only running cable, but......"
"Keep at it and you'll be fine. Director Shin looks after his own people something fierce."
The fear in the kid's eyes was quietly giving way to Tae-il's easy talk.
"......Oh! That's right. PD Song came out that time too. I went along once myself."
"Did he? I didn't know that."
"Ah, maybe I shouldn't be saying things like that......"
The kid looked carefully around.
Whether it was the heaviness that comes before dawn, most of the crew had fallen asleep.
Reassured a little, the kid loosened his voice and let the stories out.
'PD Song hasn't changed. Looks after his own something fierce, by the sound of it.'
Tae-il listened and nodded along easily.
None of it was especially useful, but right now every piece counted.
"We're here."
The bus stopped and the AD stood, waking the crew in a low, even voice.
The sleeping crew yawned, dragged their gear out and headed for the location.
Tae-il followed slowly behind them.
'It's been a long time since air like this.'
Cold air with the heat of the crew's hurry mixed into it.
The air of a set, felt again after so long, settled Tae-il's chest.
Even the waiting, with no telling when it would end, was a pleasure.
He was watching the lights go up and the camera being set when an unfamiliar voice came from behind.
"Eun Tae-il?"
Tae-il looked at the man addressing him so sourly, and bowed.
PD Song, the man in charge of the set.
As though the bow itself displeased him, the corner of his eye twitched.
"I figured you'd come slinking in around the afternoon."
"No. There's no telling when we roll, so I should be ready."
"Oh, is that so? Where did Eun Tae-il Time go?"
Tae-il's answer was brisk, and PD Song's sneer did not move.
'Fair enough. Being late was Eun Tae-il's normal.'
The crew did not hate working with Eun Tae-il for nothing.
And for a stickler like PD Song it would be worse.
"Fine, stand by if you like. Shame, though. We might not shoot your scene today. Good luck with that."
PD Song left as though there were nothing more to say, without the slightest apology in him.
It was a dismissal in all but name, a go home already, and Tae-il's head only went colder.
'Eun Tae-il really did earn himself some hate.'
Something about PD Song's turned back felt off.
Throwing one extra off a set and lifting out a whole scene were two different problems.
'Drama is a writer's genre. However well PD Song is doing, he can't blow away a whole scene.'
Film might be another story, but a PD cannot go meddling in a drama writer's script.
And the writer has to move fast to match what happens on set, too.
Tae-il watched PD Song sit down at the monitor with the camera director standing beside him, and his eyes lit.
'The scene isn't going anywhere. Writer Lee would never allow it.'
Not shooting the scene was PD Song's own private idea, nothing more.
But that one line would have been more than enough to make the old Eun Tae-il turn and walk.
Then PD Song would have gone to Writer Lee with Eun Tae-il's walkout as his reason, and killed the scene.
'A lump of pride like Eun Tae-il would have moved exactly the way you wanted. But PD Song, you've read the wrong man.'
Tae-il smiled, ran back to the bus and dug through his bag.
Inside were a mirror and an assortment of cosmetics he had brought with him.
Waterproof products, for makeup the water could not take off.
Things he had put together himself, for today's shoot.
-Ready, action!
The shoot was well underway, and Tae-il went on getting ready, slowly.
He evened out his skin tone, then put on a shirt over a white tee and ankle-length slacks, and finished with a pair of round glasses.
Tae-il took the script too and stepped out.
"Changing the setup!"
The camera setup was being changed at exactly that moment.
While the cable and the camera moved busily about, Tae-il, his makeup done, drifted in close to the others.
The art team crew, waiting for the lights and camera, saw him standing behind them and flinched.
'Oh my? Who is that?'
'That's Eun Tae-il? Wow, the face I'll give him.'
'Are we already rolling on Eun Tae-il?'
Even while they carried props, the crew kept glancing his way.
So did the rest of them, deep in the setup.
Even crew who faced doll-like actors every day found Tae-il's looks landing hard.
'There's no PD alive who turns down a pretty picture.'
Tae-il had it exactly right.
PD Song, watching his monitor with that hard stare, kept glancing over too.
'Oh ho? Will you look at this?'
PD Song knew perfectly well the man had done his makeup and was hanging about on purpose.
And whatever he wanted, his eyes kept going back to Tae-il.
The more they did, the more Tae-il, as though he knew all of it, moved to wherever PD Song's eye would catch him.
"......Cut. Push it a little harder here, make it convincing."
"Ah, yes. Sorry."
The shoot went on.
The sight of Eun Tae-il grated on him badly, and there was nothing PD Song could say about it.
The man was not in the frame, and he was not getting in the way of the shoot either.
If he had at least begged to be shot, PD Song could have refused him and enjoyed it.
"We're moving!"
On the bus it was the same.
Tae-il sat where PD Song's eye would land on him.
But he did not ask for anything, and he did not meet PD Song's eyes.
'That man, honestly...... huh.'
PD Song kept rolling his eyes over that way.
Touch the pride a little, he had thought, and the man would storm off in a temper he could not hold.
Then a word to Writer Lee, one clean snip, and everything would be fine......
'With an ordinary bit-part actor the method would have been nowhere near enough. It only works because it's Eun Tae-il.'
Tae-il watched PD Song stare out the window with his mouth twitching, and smiled.
But Tae-il knew.
The real thing started now.
"Eat here, everyone. Then we carry on!"
At the AD's shout people took their lunchboxes and drifted off one by one.
Tae-il was about to move off to eat when he felt someone behind him.
"Eun Tae-il. Let's eat together."
He turned, and there was PD Song, lunchbox in hand.
'There it is.'
Tae-il sat down with him at a table nearby, facing him.
PD Song kept the lid on his lunchbox and looked at Tae-il.
"Honestly, I find it remarkable that you're still here."
"There's a shoot. I can hardly leave."
The question was blunt and Tae-il's answer was calm.
PD Song glanced at him, then pointed a finger at the extras.
"Eun Tae-il. Anybody can do this part."
He scraped at Eun Tae-il's pride on purpose and watched for the reaction.
"You don't like getting wet. A little water splashed on you once and you poured coffee over your co-star's head. Don't push yourself."
Tae-il met the eyes of a PD Song working himself up.
'I knew PD Song disliked Eun Tae-il. Was it this bad?'
If the real Eun Tae-il had been sitting here he would have shot to his feet.
He might well have emptied the lunchbox over PD Song's head.
But the man sitting here was not Eun Tae-il. It was Tae-il, starting over.
"You're right, PD Song. Getting hit with water isn't pleasant."
"So don't push it for nothing. No need for either of us to go red in the......"
"You did get one thing wrong, though."
"What? Wrong?"
"That anybody can do this part. You called me in for the pretty picture."
PD Song twitched.
"Picture? What picture......"
"My face, not coming apart even under the water. What you actually need is the talk it generates."
PD Song coughed, embarrassed.
It was not the sort of thing that came out of Eun Tae-il. Out of an actor at all, really.
He cleared his throat several times and stumbled over his words.
"S-so you read the script a bit. You won't have worked out what kind of character the youngest daughter is, though, the one you're shooting with."
He threw the question out like a sneer.
Breaking down the work is the most basic of basics for an actor, and this Eun Tae-il could not even break down his own character properly.
"I took her for an innocent girl pretending to be a snob."
The corner of PD Song's eye moved.
"......Your reason?"
"In episode 3 the youngest daughter eats with a friend and doesn't pay 100 won of it. But in episode 6, when a friend says the business is in trouble and asks for help, she breaks into her savings without stopping to think."
"Hm...... you went through it episode by episode."
"It helps to know, if you want to follow the flow. I'll have to see where it goes after that, though......"
In a short space Tae-il laid out the character he had worked through, carefully but without a single stall.
The edge in PD Song's eyes dulled a little at a time.
'Eun Tae-il...... has he changed a little?'
PD Song listened for a good while, then raised a hand.
"Seong-ha."
"Yes, senior!"
"When we finish here, get the campus location ready."
The junior went off, and PD Song picked up his cold lunchbox and stood.
"You've been selling yourself since before dawn, so you'll show me something, won't you, Eun Tae-il?"
"Thank you! I'll give it everything."
"Food's gone stone cold. Let's eat."
Tae-il bent ninety degrees to PD Song, like a rookie actor.
Then the two of them took their chopsticks to cold rice.
'It starts now.'
***
The next location was M University.
Tae-il finished his last checks on the bus and arrived at the location.
The setup was in full swing, and the actress playing the youngest daughter and the others had not arrived yet.
While the art team put together the water balloons and the stand he would push his face through, a woman came over to him.
"Let me take a look at your makeup."
A makeup crew member.
She studied his face closely, and her eyes went round.
"There's nothing here for me to touch. Did you do this yourself, Tae-il?"
"I did."
"Good grief......! It's really taken well."
The crew member made a fuss of it and topped his makeup up.
Tae-il, ready now, took his place, and a van pulled in.
"Good morning!"
Im Ha-na, the actress playing the youngest daughter, came in bowing to the crew as she went.
Greeting everyone with the exceptional manners of a rookie, she bent at the waist to Tae-il.
"Hello, Senior Eun Tae-il!"
"Let's have a good one today."
While the brief greetings went back and forth, PD Song spoke.
"Let's hit it short and be done. Ha-na, you're going late today, so save your energy."
"Yes!"
Each of them carrying their own circumstances, the shoot proper began.