In an elementary school car park stood a glossy black van with windows tinted pitch dark.
Suspicious movement is detected inside the glass.
It was Kwon Do-gyeong. In a reverent posture, he was peeling the foil off a roll of gimbap.
Rustle, rustle-rustle.
'Careful, careful......'
This operation has to be carried out with an extremely delicate touch.
Because one slip and the gimbap can spill out everywhere.
The end piece of the roll revealed its lovely form.
He bit into it without hesitation.
Kwon Do-gyeong nodded, thinking that tuna mayo is a flavour that truly never fails.
And then he let out a laugh, suddenly hollow.
"......I meant never to do this again as long as I lived, once I'd left the manager's life behind."
Having come all the way down to Yongin, he is stuck here without moving until Seo Gang-woo's observation lesson ends.
An hour to go. An hour and he could be back in Seoul.
Playing at being a manager these last few months has left Kwon Do-gyeong caught in old memories.
'I don't know how I stood this back then.'
A manager's basic virtue is waiting in the vehicle.
Snatched sleep, paperwork, meals, ironing; all of it gets handled inside the car.
What comes of it is insomnia and a slipped disc, gastric ulcers, anxiety disorders and so on. It hurts the mouth to list them.
"Still, I had it better than most. Because noona treated me well."
There are celebrities who call a manager out to their private engagements and have him pour their drinks.
Considering there were tales more outlandish than that, his own circumstances were better.
Im A-rin gave him generous bonuses on holidays and guaranteed him proper hours of sleep, at the very least.
Having finished the gimbap without noticing, he crumpled the foil and gulped down some water.
Letting out an ahh, he muttered.
"......I'm thinking of noona. Shall I give her a call."
Lately he has not called, using being busy as an excuse. Kwon Do-gyeong picked up his smartphone.
Several rings went, and Im A-rin answered.
[Is that Do-gyeong? One moment. I'm just going to take a call!]
The sound of bustle came through. Kwon Do-gyeong asked.
"Are you out?"
[I was with director Kim. There was something to discuss.]
Director Kim would certainly mean Kim Jae-gu.
Kwon Do-gyeong's eyebrows drew together slightly.
Because he remembered that the man who had been begging to cast Seo Gang-woo had changed his tune all of a sudden.
He had said in front of Seo Gang-woo that they should try to understand the director, but there is no helping the bad taste it left.
It felt as though a signed actor had been pushed down the priority list because his agency lacked strength.
'He could hardly ignore AJ Group's backing.'
It is not that he fails to understand the director's decision to settle the casting on an acting video.
In fact, saying one thing and doing another is rife in this business.
Never mind the casting vote being overturned by a small scandal around a supporting role; where a better replacement exists they will swap out a bit part the night before shooting.
But this matter is different.
Kwon Do-gyeong knew his own position clearly.
A small agency with no money for a manager, whose CEO drives the van himself.
Seo Gang-woo being subjected to this sort of comparison happened because his own strength is weak.
'It's money that's the problem. Money.'
Lee Yu-chan has AJ Group's capital behind him.
From a director's position it is impossible not to covet the number of screens this giant dinosaur holds.
Not a twelve or a fifteen but an adults-only film. Before handing Seo Gang-woo the censored script, Kwon Do-gyeong looked through the whole one.
He knew at once. is an adults-only film.
Which is to say the number of viewers to be expected is woefully small.
More screens reduce that risk.
What would have been three hundred thousand becomes a million, and you can aim at two million, three million.
'......Honestly, if I were the director I think I'd use actor Lee Yu-chan too.'
Kim Jae-gu made an entirely realistic judgement.
To capture a mind like his you would have to show something beyond the background Lee Yu-chan carries.
And what is beyond it? Acting ability.
In the end there is nothing Kwon Do-gyeong can do in this fight.
Kwon Do-gyeong smiled bitterly, and Im A-rin's voice came to his ear.
[Sorry, sorry. Did you wait long?]
"No. I think I called at a bad time when you're busy. Shall we talk another time?"
[Why hang up! I hear Ji-yun skipped school and went to the school for the deaf. Is she behaving?]
As befits Min Ji-yun's mother, she asked after her child first.
Kwon Do-gyeong let out a small laugh.
"She's fallen for Gang-woo completely. She wasn't watching the children, only Gang-woo."
[That girl, honestly. I send her to study a character and she studies a boy instead.]
"Aren't you going to ask how Gang-woo is?"
[Well, that one will do fine. Wanting to go to the school for the deaf was his own idea, wasn't it.]
"Noona, you've never met Gang-woo once. Isn't that rather a lot of faith for that?"
[I hear he goes through a script with a fine-tooth comb?]
"Did teacher Ra tell you?"
[Yes. Mother is thoroughly taken with him. You know how she is, Do-gyeong. Our mother has a bit of the old crank in her. She's always complaining that new actors these days have gone soft, and then it's Gang-woo, that boy is romance itself~]
Im A-rin's chatter went into full flow.
Having laid out at length how Ra Ju-hyun cherishes Seo Gang-woo, she caught her breath for a moment and went on.
[And you can tell just from watching someone act.]
"Tell what?"
[That sort of thing. Ah, this one genuinely enjoys the work.]
Enjoys it, is it. That's right. That is exactly it.
Kwon Do-gyeong smiled quietly.
He had stolen a look at Seo Gang-woo through the window out of an old man's worry.
The sight of Seo Gang-woo observing the deaf people with relentless eyes came back to him.
The picture of a genius as drama and film depict one had been right there.
'......Ugh, gooseflesh.'
The thrill he felt then rises again.
A brief silence, and Im A-rin, misreading that stretch, said.
[I'm sorry.]
"Sorry?"
[I'm the one who dragged Gang-woo into this production, aren't I. Honestly, the way things are going now is a case of them wanting the earth, and I'm ashamed of it.]
"Not at all. You've done as much as you could, noona. I hear you said you wouldn't take part in this film if it isn't Gang-woo. Don't do that. If there's a good project you should do it."
[I meant it, though?]
"......Sorry?"
[If actor Seo isn't in it I'm not shooting this project.]
At that point Kwon Do-gyeong began to wonder on what grounds Im A-rin was coming out this hard.
Im A-rin said.
[I don't think I'll get many chances to make a film with an actor like Seo Gang-woo if not now. Five years? No, we'd be lucky to do one project together every ten years.]
"Gang-woo is only ten. He's barely started his career as an actor."
[He's swamped with work at the moment, isn't he?]
"......A lot of offers do come in."
[A child actor who has appeared in exactly one project. He's going to get busier from here.]
"Well, that's a settled fact."
Kwon Do-gyeong shrugged. Im A-rin spoke in a voice with the laughter taken out of it, as if in warning.
[Do-gyeong. Get your wits about you.]
"Sorry? Why?"
[Would you leave a child like that alone, if you were them? You said it's a two-year contract. If I were with a major agency I'd pay ten times the penalty to bring him over. Or wait for that contract to run out and poach him.]
"......"
[Actor Lee Yu-chan's agency will be thinking exactly that right now, I'd say.]
A sense of crisis reared its head all at once. Sweat began to gather in the hand gripping the smartphone.
Im A-rin landed the final blow on Kwon Do-gyeong.
[So, Do-gyeong, what matters to you isn't whether this casting succeeds. It's winning the goodwill of the next-generation star everyone is aiming at.]
***
"Boss! We're back!"
Two o'clock, the lesson over, and we came back to the van. When we knocked on the tinted window Kwon Do-gyeong started violently, then came out of the driver's seat and opened the door for us himself.
A mini fan, chocolate, even a bottle of water, all handed over. He was a man with a manager's career behind him to begin with, so he had always looked after us well. But his bearing has changed.
The bent knees, the expression like a man in a fluster, the eyes rolling this way and that; half a day and the whole air of the person is different.
'......What is this? It's suddenly a lot.'
Regardless of any of that, Min Ji-yun took her share as a matter of course, tore the chocolate wrapper open and held it out to me.
"You eat it."
"I'm not hungry right now."
"Mom says there's a separate stomach for snacks. Quickly. My arm hurts."
Min Ji-yun, who had stuck by my side all day, kept copying what I did.
If I scribbled something she went through the motions of writing the same, and if I observed someone she put her eyes on the same place mine were.
I took the chocolate Min Ji-yun gave me and ate it. Kwon Do-gyeong, stealing looks at us in the rearview mirror, asked.
"G-Gang-woo? Was there a harvest?"
"A harvest? Yes. It was interesting."
It was time well spent.
Knowing nothing about disability, I had vaguely assumed deaf people would be a quiet sort.
But no; deaf people are far noisier than people without disabilities.
'It'll be because they can't hear. They'd have no way of knowing how their own movements or sounds come out.'
Gesture, sound, expression. All of it is on a large scale. It is a difference that arises because the senses and the language in use are different.
Practising in front of a mirror alone will not be enough to express naturally what I saw.
Nothing for it but to film myself and go over it often.
Did he read what I was thinking? Kwon Do-gyeong asked right on cue.
"Gang-woo. Up to now you've been practising the script at home, haven't you?"
"Yes. That's right?"
"Your boss is going to get you a practice room near your house. Somewhere spacious with a full-length mirror. How you practise matters too, so I'd better give you a DSLR camera and a tripod as well. Do you have a laptop at home? Shall I give you a laptop too?"
Why is he like this all of a sudden? Not lending — he uses the word give without a flicker.
'It'll be on a loan basis, obviously? Fine by me.'
It is not polite to refuse what is being offered. I nodded.
"Yes!"
"Good. Tell me if you need anything else. Have you finished the chocolate? I'll give you more!"
"No, I'm fine."
Practice should get easier. The date set for sending the video to director Kim Jae-gu is exactly a month away.
Practise diligently and it should reach something worth watching.
Dee-ree-ree-ring~
That was when. Min Ji-yun's phone rang. She checked the screen and hesitated a moment.
"......Huh?"
"What? Who is it?"
"That, um......"
Stealing a look at the caller, it was an unexpected person.
[Sunbae-nim Lee Yu-chan]
Min Ji-yun closed the smartphone.
She knows Lee Yu-chan and I are fighting over one role, so she seems to be watching my face.
I said.
"Take it."
"Huh? Wouldn't it be all right not to?"
"Why. Are you uncomfortable with him?"
"It isn't that, but we filmed a drama together once."
The timing is certainly convenient. It was yesterday that director Kim Jae-gu asked me for an acting video
And a call like this the very next day.
'The motive is impure.'
Min Ji-yun took the call reluctantly. Lee Yu-chan's voice came through the receiver.
[Ji-yun, it's been ages! Have you been well?]
"Yes, sunbae-nim! Hello!"
[I told you not to call me sunbae. What have you been up to lately.]
Kwon Do-gyeong heard that too.
Screech—!
The car body braked hard and everyone's body pitched forward. Kwon Do-gyeong muttered.
"......No."
"Sorry?"
"Ji-yun, put it on speaker!"
***
At the MBS Goyang Drama Centre where is shot, Lee Yu-chan looked at his smartphone with a puzzled expression.
[......No.]
A thick male voice in his thirties came through, and then
[Ji-yun, put it on speaker!]
A cry close to a scream followed.
He blinked and looked at the manager beside him.
The manager made a gesture of drawing a hand across his throat several times.
Lee Yu-chan asked in a whisper.
'Why?'
'Say something suitable and hang up.'
'All of a sudden? You told me to call.'
'Later — no. Let's just do it now.'
'Do what?'
It is the first time in a while he has seen the manager wearing that face like a man who has bitten into something foul.
Lee Yu-chan wondered at it but obeyed meekly.
"Ah, Ji-yun. Sorry. The PD has suddenly asked for a rehearsal!"
[Sorry? Ah, yes! Good luck with the shoot!]
The manager whispers. Lee Yu-chan recites his words exactly.
'Not that, tell her to come to the set.'
"Ah, Ji-yun, do you want to come and see the set?"
[The set? You mean where you shoot the sitcom? When?]
The manager's words continue.
'As soon as possible.'
"Tomorrow? Or sometime this week?"
'With Seo Gang-woo.'
A strange name came out.
For a moment Lee Yu-chan found himself looking at his manager and asking back.
"Sorry?"
[Sorry?]
Seo Gang-woo. The eyes of the manager who spoke that name were shining greasily with greed.