In the dressing room where the makeup is going on, Kim Mi-ra is watching Seo Gang-woo through a half-open door.
Powder is being laid busily over pale skin.
The woman working over Seo Gang-woo's face with an artisan's hands asked.
"Gang-woo, why are you laughing?"
"Hee hee. Because it tickles."
"Noona will finish quickly. Bear with me a bit. But Gang-woo, do you get skin treatments or anything? Why is your skin this good?"
"Chief. Children have good skin as a rule."
"I know~ even so, the makeup takes far too well. One pass of the brush and it just clings. It's been a while since makeup was this satisfying. You're Gang-woo's mother, aren't you?"
"Sorry? Ah, yes, yes."
Lee Su-yeon nodded. The woman they called Chief said in a honeyed voice.
"When Gang-woo has a shoot later, if you think of us, please call. Or you're welcome to come straight to our shop. We'll help with the makeup carefully so Gang-woo's skin doesn't suffer. Maknae, what are you doing? Get the card out."
"Yes!"
The maknae, who had been spacing out, took a business card from her bag and handed it to Lee Su-yeon.
Outside the dressing room, Kim Mi-ra, observing all this, thought: extraordinary, as expected.
Artists who run mobile makeup jobs like this often base themselves in Gangnam or Cheongdam.
A system where landing one good celebrity and keeping the connection going means a steady flow of work.
Competition is fierce, so handing over a card and laying on the charm at a first meeting is standard.
But holding a card out to a child actor? That's instinct.
'She must think she'll be seeing him again someday.'
Kim Mi-ra smiled faintly. Because her conviction had deepened.
"Just the cheek color and we're done. There~ finished!"
"Thank you, noona!"
The legs dangling off the chair landed on the floor.
A ninety-degree bow with his hands over his stomach followed.
The Chief looks about ready to die of how cute it is.
Kim Mi-ra let out a snort of a laugh.
Because of the word Seo Gang-woo had chosen.
'He said noona just now, didn't he?'
Noona, not auntie. The Chief plainly has the face of a woman past her mid-thirties.
A child ten years old thinks of anyone older than himself as an ajumma, an auntie.
And yet noona.
How does a kid who's never worked a day in society come out with a word that perfect?
The more she watched, the more she liked him.
'You'd think he had years of camera experience behind him.'
Kim Mi-ra quietly moved position. The makeup was finished, which meant it was time for the rehearsal shoot.
Seo Gang-woo and Lee Su-yeon were being given direction by the staff.
"We start on the full shot, which is to say the scene where Gang-woo takes actor Choi Do-hyun's hand and gets in the car. Gang-woo is excited because he's been told they're going camping. Gang-woo, look at this. This drawing, the child is running because he's excited, right?"
"Yes!"
"The drawing looks like this, but you can't bounce around too much. If excitement is a ten, you're expressing about a three."
Kim Mi-ra's brow creased.
The staffer's direction was no good at all.
'He seems to be saying the running child shouldn't stand out more than the car......'
Run excitedly but less excitedly — is that language or a noise out of somewhere else?
But Seo Gang-woo seemed to catch the sense even of that riddle, and nodded.
Then he caught the staffer's intent straight off and demonstrated.
"Like this?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah. Nicely done."
Kim Mi-ra wore a satisfied smile.
He's clever, too. By the nature of the industry you need the wit to hear rice cake when someone says rubbish.
'If only he'd show wit like that on the drama shoot as well.'
Her expectations keep growing.
Kim Mi-ra smiled wryly. It felt like drinking the kimchi juice when nobody has even offered the rice cake.
'......When I asked whether he wanted to act, he said he'd think about it, didn't he?'
You cannot suddenly manufacture interest in a child who has none. In which case.
'There's nothing for it but to work on the child's mother.'
Kim Mi-ra looked at Lee Su-yeon.
Seo Gang-woo had let go of the hand of Lee Su-yeon's he'd been gripping tight and was trying out various poses with the staff.
Lee Su-yeon's eyes were fixed on Seo Gang-woo.
Eyes with pride in her child soaked through them, but with some worry mixed in too, like watching a child let out into water.
'Just a little longer.'
Kim Mi-ra held her breath and waited for time to pass. Watching for the moment Lee Su-yeon would be alone.
***
Gang-woo's mother, Gang-woo's mother.
Lee Su-yeon feels she has heard a lifetime's worth of "mother" in these recent days.
"Gang-woo's mother! Could you come over for a moment?"
The instant she walked into the studio she was called over about the contract.
"What do you think, ma'am? Yes, yes. Then if you could tell Gang-woo that......"
The staff passed on every opinion, down to the smallest thing, through Lee Su-yeon.
She had come to realize that a child actor's mother is busier than most managers.
But those calls of "mother" began to die down.
At the rehearsal that precedes the shoot proper, from that point on Seo Gang-woo showed not the face of a son who was only ever young, but the face of a fully seasoned kids model.
"Let's show more of the profile~ smile a little more. The scene we're shooting now is you looking out the window and marveling, Gang-woo. Like you're looking at stars in the night sky. Yes! Like that!!"
"Director! Could we lower the window a bit? I want to try putting my head out through the gap."
"Huh? Oh, yes. Gang-woo, try anything you want!"
Not content with following the direction, he even proposes poses.
The director was excited, the staff stunned, and Lee Su-yeon's expression was the same.
In the end the staff got Lee Su-yeon out of the way of the set entirely.
"Gang-woo's mother, could you step aside for a moment?"
"Sorry? Ah, yes, yes."
Lee Su-yeon watched the rehearsal alone, at a loss.
Wiping her awkward hands behind her, she said.
"I'm sorry, but might I go to the bathroom for a moment?"
"Yes! You're welcome to. Please, take your time!"
"Gang-woo, will you be all right without Mom?"
"Yes, I'm fine. I can do it well by myself."
I can do it well by myself.
At those words Lee Su-yeon's body locked for a moment, and then she moved off calmly, pretending nothing was wrong.
That was when Kim Mi-ra followed after her.
Inside the bathroom, cream-colored light lit the faces of Kim Mi-ra and Lee Su-yeon standing in front of the mirror.
Shhhhh—.
Kim Mi-ra, pretending to wash her hands, said.
"You're Gang-woo's mother, aren't you?"
"Yes, that's right, but, who might you......?"
Lee Su-yeon's eyes went over Kim Mi-ra's face closely.
Red horn-rimmed glasses and a mole under the right eye.
Familiar glasses. The sense of having seen her before makes her more suspicious, not less.
Just as Lee Su-yeon's guard was about to thicken, Kim Mi-ra said in a friendly voice.
"Hello, I'm the drama writer Kim Mi-ra. A recent work of mine is ...... would you happen to know it?"
"Oh my, ?"
A weekend drama that finished just four months ago. A hit whose peak rating touched thirty percent.
The heroine gets kidnapped, someone gets clocked in the jaw with a bunch of chonggak kimchi, beams shoot out of eyes.
Even in the ecosystem of weekend dramas where that kind of trashy development runs riot, it had a presence uniquely fierce.
'......But she isn't a writer who only does trash?'
Lee Su-yeon, a drama lover, has kept up with six or seven of Kim Mi-ra's works alone.
Period pieces and medical shows, romance and revenge melodrama and the rest.
Every work she puts out attempts a transformation, and it lands on the public's taste with uncanny accuracy every time.
Lee Su-yeon's mind began spinning fast.
A drama writer known as a ratings machine. Why would that person come find me?
The reason was easy to guess.
It would be about Seo Gang-woo, her son.
Lee Su-yeon took Kim Mi-ra's hand with an exaggerated gesture and shook it up and down.
"I really loved that drama!"
"Thank goodness. I was nervous in case you didn't know it."
"How could I not! I watched every episode from the first. I've seen your earlier work too. , , ......"
Kim Mi-ra's back catalogue came pouring out of Lee Su-yeon's mouth.
And not only that.
As a drama fanatic, Lee Su-yeon listed the emotional beats she'd felt in each work and the famous scenes she loved.
Praise makes even a whale dance.
That holds true even for a drama writer with any number of hits behind her.
The corners of Kim Mi-ra's lips began to twitch.
Kim Mi-ra forgot for a moment why she had come, then snapped back to herself.
'No. At this rate I can't bring up the child actor.'
The reason she came is to book Seo Gang-woo.
Lee Su-yeon is target number one for winning the child over. Kim Mi-ra cleared her throat and made to get to the point, but.
"Ahem. Thank you. Would you happen to......"
"Shall we go to a cafe nearby?"
"Sorry?"
Lee Su-yeon said with a meaningful smile.
"Was there something you wanted to say?"
That she had come to the wrong target.
***
Like mother, like son, is that the phrase.
Kim Mi-ra thought.
That the source of that remarkable instinct for choosing the word noona over auntie in the dressing room was right here.
Inside the cafe, Kim Mi-ra sits facing Lee Su-yeon.
Her scenario had certainly gone like this.
[Mother, Gang-woo is overflowing with talent. Shall we make Gang-woo's moment of genius bloom, just once?]
Build the child up, and Lee Su-yeon, drunk on the taste of it, gets Seo Gang-woo to set foot in acting.
Many child actors come to walk the actor's road by this route.
Sent to acting school instead of math school, made to practice diction with a pen in the mouth instead of the hand.
But this situation she had not anticipated.
"Actor Choi Do-hyun said as much to me. Whether Gang-woo had any thought of acting."
"Yes......"
"I'll go straight to the point. I want to follow Gang-woo's own will. Enjoying it comes before talent."
A parent who respects the child's will entirely, drawing a firm line before persuasion can even be attempted.
Kim Mi-ra bit her lip.
Face, spark, acting. Isn't he a child with all three?
Talent like that has to be brought in even if the person himself doesn't want it.
Once you're loved you come to love the work, and once you've experienced several sets you come to love it more deeply still.
Seo Gang-woo was a child born with that kind of talent.
Just as Kim Mi-ra was about to open her mouth, Lee Su-yeon said.
"During the rehearsal, Gang-woo said something. That he could do it well by himself, without Mom."
"......"
"It's a sort of bittersweet feeling? As his mother I want to help with this and that, and when it turns out I'm no help at all it makes me feel powerless."
Lee Su-yeon smiled faintly.
"I know it too. That our Gang-woo really does have talent to spare. But when he's flying that freely on his own, is there any need for me to interfere?"
"Ah......"
"So please ask Gang-woo, not me. Whether he wants to try acting."
It was an answer with no room left over.
Kim Mi-ra looked down at her coffee cup without speaking.
A minute or so passed before she said.
"Actor Choi Do-hyun is going to envy Gang-woo."
"Sorry?"
"Actor Choi is a case of someone who acted because his parents drove him to it. You'll know about it. It was all over the news. An unlucky actor who had to keep acting because of his father's business debts. I met actor Choi on my first credited script. Exactly ten years ago now."
"Ah......"
"He'd have been in his early twenties then? An actor who hated acting. Said he'd rather die than do it."
Kim Mi-ra went on.
"But if he'd had someone like you, mother, actor Choi would have turned out very differently. As it is now, well, he does seem to think of acting as his life's work. Anyway. Forgive the intrusion."
"Not at all. Please."
"But do know this much."
Kim Mi-ra's eyes brightened.
"That Gang-woo's talent is the real thing. And that there's something in him that shines even brighter than talent. I felt it watching him today. That Gang-woo......"
Kim Mi-ra smiled and let a pause hang before finishing.
"takes after his mother a great deal. Shall we get up?"
"Yes, yes."
On the way back to the studio, she rummaged in her bag as if something had come to mind.
"That's right. I have something for you."
What came out was a thin script. She handed the script to Lee Su-yeon. A title showed on the cover.
Lee Su-yeon took the script against her chest. At the back door of the studio, the bustling noise began to come through from beyond it.
Kim Mi-ra said.
"It's a drama going into production in six weeks. It's a courtroom piece, and the role I meant to offer Gang-woo was the son of a divorcing family."
"......A divorcing family?"
"Yes. To be precise, parents in the middle of a divorce suit both declare they're giving up custody of the child. I was going to ask him to act a child abandoned by his parents."
Kim Mi-ra took hold of the door handle and gave a small laugh.
"I don't know whether Gang-woo will like the role. I hope it suits him."
The door opened, and the busy movement of the staff came rushing about. The mechanical noise of camera equipment and the director's instructions were tangled together.
In the middle of the set, under the bright lights, Seo Gang-woo and Choi Do-hyun are facing each other and laughing.
Lee Su-yeon and Kim Mi-ra looked at Seo Gang-woo.
Kim Mi-ra whispered.
"Just give Gang-woo the script. Tell him there's a role like this, and ask what he thinks."
"Yes. I will."
"If the chance comes, I'll help in every way I can so that Gang-woo can grow into a fine actor."
Right on cue, the PD's okay sign burst out.
"Cut! Okay~"
Seo Gang-woo's face was flushed. His cheeks were faintly red and his eyes sparkled.
"Ah, one more thing, Gang-woo's mother."
"Yes?"
"Gang-woo's term starts soon, doesn't it?"
"Yes, early March."
"Exactly when the ad goes out. Gang-woo's going to be a star at school."
Kim Mi-ra looked at Seo Gang-woo's face and smiled.
There was no need to worry.
That was the face of a child who had come across the thing he loves.