[Welcome to Flower Boy House Audition Information]
Tae-il received a message from TN Production.
A notice asking him to attend the audition.
'There was no chance they'd see that profile and not call.'
He had sent a profile with a soft impression behind glasses and a profile with the glasses off and a cutting look in the eye.
Both of them picked out of everything he had, for this audition.
With Eun Tae-il's natural face on top of it, he had been certain a camera test would come.
He had submitted his profile to people with exactly that much of an eye.
'Time to prepare for the audition.'
Tae-il put the phone down and picked up the script instead.
Gu Han-seong, the character he was auditioning for, was not a character with many scenes.
'First, the work itself.'
Many scenes or few, lead or bit part, you cannot act properly without knowing the flow of the work.
Why that character does what he does. Without the whole shape of it, you end up acting like a robot.
'That's how Eun Tae-il went under. And the agency never pointed it out.'
A face alone can take you up; lasting is another matter.
Coming up young and early had been poison to Eun Tae-il.
After that, Tae-il lived with the script in his hands every day.
'Only this part is different. It's dark.'
Reading through it, he always stopped short at scene 17.
Scene 17 was where Ju-hwan, the protagonist, remembers the days his brother Do-hwan tormented him.
Unlike the other scenes, where a set of flower boys carried the mood along lightly, this one was quite dark.
It had nothing to do with the character he was auditioning for, and in the flow of the work it was a very important scene.
'The pacing here has to be handled well. Hm......'
Ju-hwan the protagonist was settled, but casting the older brother Do-hwan, the one who would have to breathe with him, looked anything but simple.
Preparing for the audition, the time went fast.
'Condition, okay.'
On the morning of the audition, Tae-il stood in front of the mirror, patted on toner and slapped his cheeks lightly.
Thanks to an early night, his skin was in good shape and his eyes were clear without a mark on them.
Tae-il took a checked shirt and a pair of thick horn-rimmed glasses and was about to leave the room.
'I should take that too, shouldn't I?'
On his way out, Tae-il stopped and looked at the semi-formal suit hanging on the rail.
The suit was not a costume the audition character needed.
But for that other character, just in case, Tae-il took the clothes with him and went out the front door.
He arrived at TN Production, and a staff member met him.
"The waiting room is over there."
Guided in by the staff member, he entered the waiting room and two men were sitting there.
Jeong Tae-ung, the chief from Namu Entertainment he had met a few days ago, and the actor in his charge.
"There it is. I thought I'd see you today."
Chief Jeong raised a hand in answer to Tae-il's greeting, then sat down beside him with a sigh.
"You were right. That Seo Jin-su really was planning to knife us in the back."
"He is, isn't he? How did you find out?"
"Put a drink in him and it all comes out, obviously. Doesn't know what he owes the people who raised him off the street."
Chief Jeong lifted his eyelids and let out a long breath.
Tae-il watched him and smiled faintly.
'He won't have the attention to spare on me for a while.'
There was no chance Namu Ent would leave him alone while he was trying to get back up any way he could.
They take the success of a performer they let go as proof of their own failure.
But until Seo Jin-su was dealt with, they would struggle to pay attention to this side.
Clearing up two at once would be a weight on them too.
As though he knew nothing about any of it, Tae-il straightened his back and smiled.
"You know, don't you? That this wasn't free."
"I know, I know. Your big brother will buy you a meal."
"Were we close enough to eat a meal together?"
Tae-il drew the line with a deliberate air of being bothered.
'I can say things like this because I'm Eun Tae-il.'
Kim Seung-chan could never have said it, but as Eun Tae-il he could push a good deal harder.
They would take it as obvious, because this was the kind of man he had always been.
If anything, it made cutting him off easier.
Just as Tae-il had thought, Chief Jeong shrugged as though giving up.
"And here I was going to buy you something nice for once. What can I do for you, then?"
"I'm not asking for anything big. One favour, on hold. Okay?"
"Deal. Tell me one thing. That person from Lime Ent who told you about the Jin-su business......"
"I said that's enough."
Before, a little coaxing and he would tell you; the man was strangely exacting about this.
'Honestly. It feels like I'm dancing on his palm.'
There were rumors he had changed lately. Should he be on his guard?
Chief Jeong was about to try a little more when a shadow fell across the two of them.
"What's this? It really was Eun Tae-il?"
"H-Hui-seong. I told you to sit and rest."
Chief Jeong was flustered, and the man's eyes were fixed on Tae-il.
"Look at him, sitting there when a senior arrives."
Lee Hui-seong existed in Tae-il's memory, and in Eun Tae-il's.
'Lee Hui-seong. That bat of a man hasn't changed.'
While Eun Tae-il was popular he had stuck to him with flattery and false friendship, and the moment the popularity dropped he was the first to cut him loose and turn hostile.
Namu Ent went a step further, turned the conflict between them into articles, and drove Eun Tae-il as the villain.
'Lee Hui-seong made a name for himself as the actor Eun Tae-il power-tripped on. He never rose, for lack of staying power.'
Tae-il turned his eyes to Chief Jeong as though the swaggering Lee Hui-seong were not there at all.
"Chief. It seems Namu is short of people these days."
"What?"
"I was wondering who would come instead of Seo Jin-su. And it's Senior Lee Hui-seong. Pff."
Tae-il covered his mouth and let a laugh out, and the corner of Lee Hui-seong's eye went up in discomfort.
"That twisted little heart of yours is why you're finished. Thrown out of that good company as well."
"Bwahaha."
"You're laughing?"
Tae-il only went on laughing, and Lee Hui-seong's face twisted further and further.
After laughing a good long while, Tae-il wiped away the tear that had squeezed out and went on.
"Sorry, I'm sorry. But it's too funny, isn't it. Being told my heart's twisted by Seo Jin-su's understudy. Bwahaha!"
"Wh-what are you saying, you bastard......!"
"Heh heh. Ah, my stomach. When I think how many times Chief Jeong must have rubbed his palms together because of you...... ah, stop. My stomach hurts."
"You bastard......!"
Lee Hui-seong's face went scarlet and his voice rang around the waiting room.
His voice was so loud that even the disinterested production staff frowned.
"Well, the volume is leading-man class, anyway. Sir, the secret to your projection?"
"......Do you want a beating like a dog in the dog days?"
"I'm not asking you to teach me for free. I'll teach you pronunciation, all right? Say it after me. Jo Shin-ae."
"Y-you bastard......!"
"Say it after me. Jo. Shin. Ae. Jo. Shin. Ae."
The more Tae-il repeated the same word, the more Lee Hui-seong's face flushed red.
In an earlier production he had failed to say the female lead's name, Jo Shin-ae, properly, and it had been mounted and stuffed on social media ever since.
For Lee Hui-seong it was the scale you never touch.
"You f*cking bastard!"
His face flushed to bursting, Lee Hui-seong hauled Tae-il up by the collar.
Held by the collar, Tae-il smiled like a winner.
"Come to think of it, this production's female lead is named Yu-na, isn't she? No need to practise. Congratulations."
"You won't be saying that name anyway, you......"
"Lee Hui-seong!"
At that, the shout Chief Jeong let out rang around the waiting room.
Lee Hui-seong flinched in surprise, and Tae-il took the hand off his collar.
Lee Hui-seong tried to hold on, too late, and could not match Tae-il's strength.
"They're calling you in, senior."
"You're making that up......"
"Lee Hui-seong. Are you not going in?!"
Where Tae-il had pointed, a staff member was calling Lee Hui-seong with irritation in her voice.
Chief Jeong, who had been holding him back, had a hand over his face.
"C-c-coming!"
Only then did Lee Hui-seong scramble after the staff member.
He wanted to put a fist in that jeering face right now, but the audition came first.
Going into the audition room, Chief Jeong glanced back at Tae-il.
'His temper hasn't changed. Was I worrying over nothing?'
Chief Jeong decided to drop his interest in Eun Tae-il.
Watching him fail to swallow even a trivial provocation, it looked as though the Face Senior business and the rest of it would end in a flash of success.
There was nobody on his side to look after him either.
'Leave me alone for a while. And in the meantime......'
The moment the door shut completely, Tae-il's face went hard.
An actor and a chief had walked into an audition room together.
'This isn't flowing well. In that case......'
Checking the clothes he had brought, Tae-il opened the script again.
***
"......Then we'll be counting on you."
Lee Hui-seong and Chief Jeong bent at the waist, and CP Seong, seated in the middle, smiled.
"We'll see you on read-through day, then."
"Thank you! I'll give it everything!"
Lee Hui-seong's loud voice spread through the audition room, and a warm, friendly conversation went on between Chief Jeong and CP Seong.
It had all happened within five minutes of the audition starting.
'......I can cut that one's screen time down little by little.'
Unlike the genial CP Seong, Writer Shin yawned with a bored face.
'One left, is it? Let's give it a look and go.'
***
Less than ten minutes after going into the audition room, Lee Hui-seong came back to the waiting room.
He came in, and Eun Tae-il was reading his script alone.
The corner of Lee Hui-seong's mouth went up, sour.
"Well now, you still haven't gone?"
Tae-il looked up at him evenly through the barb.
'It went well for him, then.'
Seeing Lee Hui-seong so sure of himself, it was not hard to guess roughly what had been said in there.
An agency's muscle working on an audition was something that happened.
Lee Hui-seong slapped Tae-il's shoulder and burst out laughing.
"You waited all this time and for what? There won't be a place for......"
"Move it."
"What? Uh......"
Tae-il knocked his hand away and followed the staff member.
Lee Hui-seong was about to let his anger out, and Chief Jeong, coming up behind, stopped him.
"Leave it. You know he's finished anyway."
"That bastard winds me up right to the end."
"Don't get tangled up and make a story out of it. After today we won't have anything to do with him."
Watching Tae-il follow the staff member into the audition room, Chief Jeong muttered.
'He knows it won't work. Why is he so calm?'
Tae-il stepped into the audition room.
Writer Shin sat at the far left, CP Seong in the middle, PD Choi on the right.
"Good afternoon."
CP Seong, looking at the profile photos, tossed out a line at Tae-il.
"Eun Tae-il. Take a step forward."
The red light came on, and the test proper began.
On the three monitors, the whole of Tae-il in his drab checked shirt was laid bare.
Last of all Tae-il put on the horn-rimmed glasses and met the eyes of the three of them.
Writer Shin, wearing a bored expression, ran a hand lightly over her chin.
'The visual is...... not bad at all.'
'Well, we have to keep the form of it so nobody can complain. Let's see a little more. PD Choi.'
At CP Seong's gesture, PD Choi worked the machine and took a bust shot.
Holding his pose, Tae-il put on the horn-rimmed glasses he had brought and let the force out of his eyes.
Tae-il's shining looks took on something unassuming, and he became a model student.
'Gu Han-seong is a model student who has lived exactly as his parents told him.'
The horn-rimmed glasses made the look in Tae-il's eyes blunter.
Looking between the profile photo and the monitor, Writer Shin's eyes took on a different light.
'He's caught the point well. Shame...... the last one was so overdone it was uncomfortable.'
A little earlier, the one from Namu Ent, Lee Hui-seong, had come in wearing baggy jeans and a denim jacket, calling it his own interpretation.
Overdo the concept and you become unlikeable, and that had been exactly the state of him.
'A shame. If it weren't for Namu Ent...... he'd be worth casting.'
A bitterness passed across Writer Shin's mouth and was gone.
However much she regretted it, overturning what the companies had settled between them was difficult.
'That's enough for the camera test. A shame, but......'
CP Seong nodded at her with an indifferent look.
The gesture said: let's wrap this up.
The casting was decided, and going further had no meaning.
Writer Shin opened her mouth with a heavy sigh.
"......Thank you for your work, Tae-il. Anything you'd like to say, last of all?"
"There's something I've prepared separately."
"A free performance?"
"Yes. Scene 17. I've prepared the part of Do-hwan."
At the words scene 17, the look in Writer Shin's eyes moved slightly.
"Not Ju-hwan, then. Do-hwan? That won't be easy."
"I'll do my best. Ahem, ahem."
Tae-il took off the horn-rimmed glasses, put on the suit he had brought and neatened his hair.
Then he rolled his sleeves up, and the veins standing up over the backs of his hands came right out.
'Do-hwan is Ju-hwan's half-brother and the man who inflicts his trauma. And the man he looks up to.'
The gawky model student had turned into a man with a sharp mind and a dangerous smell about him.
'Is it the face? Has the image changed this completely?'
Looking between the other profile Tae-il had sent and the monitor, she leaned her body toward him.