After the gosa ended, the floor began to bustle again.
Because the first shoot was booked right after it.
While the staff cleared the table away, I asked PD Lee Jae-won.
"What happens to the leftover food?"
"We'll share it out at break time. Throwing all that away would be throwing away the luck too. Gang-woo, you've got no schedule today, right? Do you want to stay and watch? Eat lunch before you go. That head meat is genuinely good."
"Yes. I wanted to watch the shoot anyway."
"Good. The money you put in gets used for the after-party later. So don't be sad about not getting it back."
"It's fine. It isn't even my money."
"The boy's got maturity, I tell you."
PD Lee Jae-won stroked my head and said I was grown up. Is this something to be praised for?
"......Are there children who cry because you took their money?"
"Yes. There was one the other time. Weeping and wailing, an absolute scene......"
"Director!"
"Yeah! Coming! Anyway, have fun. See you in a bit? Yeah?"
Lee Jae-won ran off in a fluster and was gone in no time.
I followed him to the set.
A few people left for busy schedules, but most walked in the same direction I did.
'It is the first shoot, after all.'
The leads of that first shoot were, naturally, Choi Do-hyun in the male lead role and Gu Ha-rin in the female lead's.
Having their makeup touched up, the two of them were listening to the staff's direction with their scripts in hand.
Choi Do-hyun in particular is a different person from the one I saw at In Entertainment on the day of the acting contest.
An actor who changes before and after payment, you might say.
Hair set, shaved, made up — with all three lined up, the look of a celebrity comes off him.
'The suit sits well on him.'
Since the drama's genre is a courtroom piece, the protagonists' profession is lawyer.
Is that sponsored too? It's pressed to a knife's edge without a single wrinkle.
'Gang-woo, watch your uncle act!'
He must have felt my eyes, because Choi Do-hyun waved happily and mouthed the words.
Appearances aside, this is a man with twenty years behind him.
There will be plenty to learn in all sorts of ways.
I smiled back at him.
Gu Ha-rin, who had been silent beside him, muttered briefly.
"......So cute."
"You're pretty too, noona!"
"I know!"
Laughter blossomed on a set that had been tense.
Click, click.
Even in the middle of this the camera shutters went on.
They need them for the promotional images.
It bothered me at first, but with cameras everywhere around me I am gradually going numb to it.
That was when. Led by the assistant director's shout, the staff signalled that the shoot was ready.
"Rolling!"
"Ready camera."
"Sound recording."
"Ready, cue!"
The sign that every department was ready to hold the actors' performance, and the PD called out.
"Action—!"
At that one word the mood of the set changed in an instant.
The expressions of actors who had been loosening the tension with light smiles changed in a single moment.
Choi Do-hyun tightened his tie, and Gu Ha-rin put strength into the hand gripping the prop briefcase.
The centre of the body, the walk, right down to where the eyes go — the way they were until a moment ago is nowhere to be found.
The bearing of professionals, indeed.
'......Do I look like that too, I wonder.'
I really don't know.
I have watched video of myself acting, but I don't think I could immerse myself in a role that fast.
But I don't think I will never be able to.
Because I am still growing.
Working as a figure artist, researching countless characters, real people and invented ones, and immersing myself in their lives and their present — all of that experience is helping enormously.
"Cut! Good!"
With the director's shout, the first take was over.
Applause broke out. Led by writer Kim Mi-ra and Lee Jae-won, people traded small congratulations.
"Gang-woo."
Kim Mi-ra, having exchanged greetings with the actors, came over to me.
Even for a woman who has turned out one project a year, the moment of a first take must always be a thrill, because her face was flushed.
"How does it feel? Overwhelming?"
"I like how bustling it is. Watching uncle Do-hyun act made me want to do it like that too."
"Come by often. There's a shoot in the evening as well, so you'll be able to watch after school too."
......Can't I skip school and come and watch instead? Kim Mi-ra looked at me and let out a small laugh.
"Why are you laughing?"
"Because your face was cute. Like a little devil. Look at me, I'm losing my head. I have to give you the thing we talked about."
Kim Mi-ra took a script out of the bag she had left on a chair. Quite a thick bundle came out.
"Here, everything that's come out so far. You absolutely must not lose it, all right?"
"Yes!"
"That's a fair thickness of script — can you read it? You don't even have many scenes to shoot, Gang-woo."
"Because I'm greedy."
"Greedy?"
"Jun-yeong seems like an important character. Like a role that makes the protagonist look back at his past."
The smile at the corner of Kim Mi-ra's mouth deepened.
"That's right. You saw it properly. So when you asked for the script it wasn't for your own role, it was to analyse uncle Do-hyun's?"
"Yes."
"Tell uncle Do-hyun sometime what sort of person you think the protagonist is. I think he'd like that."
Kim Mi-ra looked at me with a pleased expression and took something else out of her bag.
"These are the noise-cancelling headphones we'll be using as PPL. Try them out on the way home."
The scene being shot tomorrow is the one that was added.
Kim Mi-ra must have judged it better to give them to me in advance rather than on the day, because she handed the headphones over.
"Thank you!"
"Thank you nothing, I'm the one who's more grateful, for you agreeing to an unreasonable request."
"Writer! Could you come over a moment??"
"Aigo, no peace. Gang-woo, you'll do well for me, won't you?"
"Of course. Don't worry!"
I answered confidently. Kim Mi-ra wore a relieved expression and patted my shoulder.
"Anyway, I'm counting on you. See you at call time tomorrow?"
She said it and left to talk with the other staff.
Left alone, I examined the headphone box closely.
[Noise-Cancelling Headphones - Ai Joa Study]
A wing logo is drawn on the box in a minimal style.
It was a logo I had never seen.
'Not a conglomerate — a small or mid-size company made this, wasn't it? Making a children's model as well means they've probably staked the company's life on this product.'
Noise-cancelling headphones made for children. The market they are aimed at was clear.
Parents trying to get their children to study.
Given that they fit me at ten years old, maybe there are separate children's and teenagers' models.
'......You can feel the heat of the private education market in this.'
I opened the box and took the headphones out.
Lighter than I expected.
The part that touches the ears was made of a soft leather material.
The design is decent too, for something released for educational use.
The problem is that this is a brand I have no memory of. It probably didn't sell and went under.
'Well, all I have to do is advertise it.'
The moment I put the headphones on, the noise around me vanished as if by magic.
The staff talking, the sound of the audio cart moving, even the air conditioning. All of it went faint as if sunk under water.
Clap—.
I clapped my hands together. Only a dull sound came through faintly.
Sweeping my eyes around, I could see people opening their mouths with no sound coming out.
Like watching a silent film.
The character called Jun-yeong in the work spits out resentful words at the parents who abandon him and then puts these headphones on.
A tool that cuts him off from the world that torments him. The symbolism is good.
The noise really is blocked, so the acting should come out well too.
But the acting I have to do is not ordinary acting.
'PPL acting is the part that gets me.'
I fiddled with the headphones and thought about it.
'How do I act wearing these? While showing off the product more? To get more of the logo in the frame......'
The brand logo has to be visible for at least twenty seconds. I stood in front of the mirror and began practising poses.
Entirely unaware that a camera close by was taking pictures of me.
***
'......Isn't that Seo Gang-woo?'
Entertainment reporter Park Ji-min had been taking pictures with her camera from the moment the gosa began.
As on every terrestrial drama, the photographs she has to get are fixed.
The gosa shot, a shot where the lead actors look impressive, a shot of the actors laughing together to conjure a harmonious mood.
'It's dull, having to shoot the same pictures every time.'
Dull or not, what can she do. Take what they shovel from above is the fate of the salaried worker.
Park Ji-min held her camera and stayed faithful to her real job.
It was around the tail end of the gosa that she spotted Seo Gang-woo.
The boy jamming a roll of notes into a pig's head's nostril — the Seo Gang-woo who had been briefly famous from the TV commercial.
Park Ji-min, an entertainment reporter, knew him well.
Because the untouched smile he showed in the commercial made her forget how hard the commute was.
But what was this — the real thing didn't fit inside a screen.
Park Ji-min could not take her eyes off Seo Gang-woo's face.
Eyes that seemed to hold a deep lake, that smile when he laughs...... she found herself grinning along with Seo Gang-woo's smile.
'......Nuclear grade.'
Park Ji-min defined Seo Gang-woo's existence in a phrase.
He was without question the hidden card the production had prepared.
How can a child be that handsome? She wanted to talk to him.
She could not. She was strictly here on a shoot for the drama's publicity.
And besides, Park Ji-min's main mark was Choi Do-hyun.
Being the male lead, Choi Do-hyun was called all over the place.
Which meant Park Ji-min's own feet moved fast to match.
When no chance to make time appeared at all, Park Ji-min boiled over.
'I just want to see that Seo Gang-woo one more time......!'
Did her desperate prayer reach heaven? Choi Do-hyun went to the bathroom for a moment.
It was the perfect opportunity.
Pretending to shoot the set, Park Ji-min hurried to the place she had memorised.
[Dressing Room 3]
Seo Gang-woo, standing in front of a bulb-lit mirror, turning the headphones over in his hands.
'......I have to shoot that.'
Park Ji-min raised her camera on instinct.
Click.
Seo Gang-woo in profile, looking down at the headphones with his lips pushed out, went into the camera.
Click.
Then him tilting his head with the headphones over only one ear.
Click.
Then him putting a hand to the ear cup and closing his eyes gently.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Every one of them is quality enough to run in a photo magazine. When she had taken about twenty, Park Ji-min left the spot with regret.
With no way of knowing when Choi Do-hyun would come back, she had to make the fullest use of the scraps of time.
'The view count is going to explode.'
Park Ji-min crouched down and hammered at her laptop. The headline had already decided itself.
The clatter of frenzied typing began to ring out.