Clap! Writer Son, who had at some point unfolded her arms and puffed out her chest, clapped her hands once and asked the director.
"I like it. What do you say, Director?"
Director Kim slowly nodded as well.
"Let's go with that."
"Chae-eun, you said? The student performer. Sitting toward the back, did you say?"
Since I'd taken Writer Son's side, the sharp writer mentioned my performer in return.
Writer Son's secret to success, number two. Unfailing give-and-take.
"Yes. I'll have her ready right away."
I quickly called Chae-eun out to a corner of the hallway.
"What is it?"
Chae-eun was looking at me with empty eyes. It was different again from the wary look she'd given me in the taxi.
'Don't tell me, is she immersed in the role right now?'
"Chae-eun. In a little while, the camera's going to come to you."
"Yes. ...What?!"
From the way a light flashed on in her vacant eyes, she'd clearly been immersed in the drama.
"There's no time to explain in detail, so when the camera comes to you, act boldly. What were you thinking just now while you watched those kids?"
"Sorry? Um... Kind of noisy? Childish... What a joke?"
Correct.
The headline of the article I'd checked had also carried the sentence 'What a joke'. This must be the key line that runs through all of 'Utopia'.
There's no need for it to be the lead's line.
"Right. That's it. So when your chance comes, you just have to spit it out exactly like that."
"Even though it isn't in the script?"
"Just trust me."
Those words, which I was saying to another person for the first time, lingered awkwardly in my mouth.
***
BANG!
When the performer playing Bully 1 kicked the chair of the performer playing So-yeon, the bullied outcast, So-yeon toppled straight to the floor and rolled.
The bully stamped her slippered foot down again and again on the head of So-yeon, who lay groaning on the floor, and let out a cheerful laugh, and the camera, pulling away from the bully's face, caught the expression of Chae-eun, who was sitting at the back of the classroom.
Over Chae-eun's unfeeling gaze, which had been turned toward the floor, a faint relief soon surfaced. In the very middle of a scene of violence, Chae-eun calmly took out a hairbrush and began to brush her long hair.
The contrast between So-yeon, whose head was being stomped on without mercy, and Chae-eun, who tidied her own hair while watching her, chilled anyone looking on.
It was nothing short of a thriller. The clear, unclouded, rabbit-like face revealed when Chae-eun, done brushing her hair, smiled at the friend in the next seat added its share to the contrast in mood.
Brushing her hair was Chae-eun's idea. All that Writer Son and Director Kim had asked of Chae-eun on set was the look she gave the fallen So-yeon.
Once the camera rolled, Chae-eun pulled off that physical acting on the spot and left Writer Son in admiration.
"You did so well, Chae-eun. Where did you learn to act?"
When the morning shoot wrapped up, Writer Son showed an interest in Chae-eun.
"Thank you, I haven't really learned anywhere. My manager coached me well."
Is she talking about Du-hwan, the one who supposedly takes such tremendous care of her? But having said that, Chae-eun took one more step and stood next to me. She was naturally passing the credit to me and smiling shyly.
"So you've found yourself a very good manager, Chae-eun? I'll be looking forward to the afternoon too."
When Writer Son left those hearty words behind and went off to have lunch with the assistant director, nothing but awkwardness remained between Chae-eun and me, who'd been praised out of nowhere.
***
'Where did she go?'
Chae-eun, who'd said she'd go brush her teeth after eating her boxed lunch, was nowhere to be seen.
As I passed down the hallway, I glanced toward the sinks of the women's restroom, whose door was slightly open, but the restroom was completely empty.
To find Chae-eun, I walked the long hallway to its end, quickly scanning the insides of the classrooms and the view outside the windows.
"So does it feel good, now that you've snatched it all up?"
What's that? I stopped walking and focused on the sound.
The sound, which had been echoing dully from somewhere, gradually grew distinct. It was a specialty from my reporter days. If I concentrated on one spot in the middle of the sound of the wind, my frequency would tune itself to the voice I wanted to hear.
After eavesdropping again and again, my ears had opened up, you could say.
"It's not in the script, so why are you acting up? When I'm the one acting, the shots all go to you, you know."
"Professional courtesy's dropped dead."
When I stuck my head far out of the window at the end of the hallway, where the sound was coming from, I finally saw the performers playing the bully students, smoking in the parking lot.
They were playing bullies even off camera. Why are there so many method-level performers on a one-act drama?
"I auditioned to get in here. My role is on a whole different level from kids like you who just fill a seat. And they go and change that on set?"
"So kids with no connections don't even get to act, how sad is that? I figured she was going so fucking overboard, a bit part showing up with a manager attached."
"Hey. Let us in on the good stuff too. How did you get into an agency, anyway? Get them to take me too."
"......."
Chae-eun was silently bearing the bullies' abuse without saying a word. Could she be scared?
No way. This is Chae-eun, who had fire coming from her eyes as she said she'd eat them all alive.
If Chae-eun eats the bullies alive here, she will certainly stand out more than anyone on this set. But it takes her further from the quest, which says to get her a line.
Thanks to Chae-eun saying she'd had my help, I'd been praised in advance as a good manager to have. So that the praise wouldn't be put to shame, it was now my turn to pay her back.
Just then, one of the bullies blew a long stream of cigarette smoke into Chae-eun's face.
Gulp.
I swallowed dryly without meaning to. Girl bullies were a different sort of creature from boy bullies.
They let out short laughs as they look at your face, whisper among themselves, and stab you with looks you can't decipher.
If once in a while you meet a girl bully with a good hand for hitting, you may end up being hit by them directly, and that, apart from the physical pain, leaves heavy mental damage as well.
How do I know all this, you ask? I didn't want to know it either.
"I was wondering where she'd dragged in some embarrassing-as-fuck loser from, but I guess a manager's a manager? He even makes roles for her?"
On top of that, their mouths are, as a rule, extremely foul.
I looked at the full-length mirror set up at the end of the hallway. The me in the mirror was hiding his expression behind thick horn-rimmed glasses and heavy bangs, just as in the previous world.
"......."
I took off the non-prescription glasses and clenched them tight in my hand. When I hooked my fingers into the heavy bangs and swept them back, the long line of my eyes showed beneath a straight, even forehead.
I have no intention of living like an invisible man in this world too. I'm going to teach them myself that you have to answer for the words you carelessly spit out.
"Chae-eun."
Having jumped into the scene of the bullying, I called Chae-eun's name. Chae-eun, who'd been shifting her center of gravity as if she'd throw her tightly clenched fist any second, stopped short.
When she looked back, Chae-eun's pupils were contracted to points. It was lucky I'd been able to step in right before she snapped, but there was no telling how she'd react. Have I crossed Chae-eun's line?
What? Who's that? The bullies whispered among themselves. Chae-eun didn't seem to recognize me at a glance either. Her pupils slackened, and slowly a question mark rose in them.
"...Oppa?"
Fortunately, Chae-eun found the most fitting form of address for the situation and passed me the baton.
"What are you doing out here, Chae-eun? You have to get ready for the shoot. You know you've got a lot of important shots this afternoon too, right?"
When I flicked a glance at Chae-eun's tightly clenched fist, the quick-witted Chae-eun shook her hand out.
"Uh.... Of course I know?"
"That was the loser from earlier?"
"Fuck, sue those glasses."
The bullies' voices reached me at a level I couldn't ignore. I let my gaze rest on the faces of the three performers, one at a time.
They auditioned to get in, they say. The reason they were cast as bullies is probably eighty percent looks. Their sharp eyes are quite striking, after all.
But as far as I know, their faces don't appear anywhere from here on.
It meant that although they'd kept up their method acting even off camera, they'd failed to make their presence known.
With character like this, it was, in a way, only to be expected.
The entertainment world is a place where, if you're a star, even a trash personality gets packaged as charm and individuality. But the entertainment world was also a place that, before you made it, prized courtesy and decorum to a degree that would surely make even a Joseon-era scholar throw up his hands.
A society where the strong eat the weak, where, if you fail to hide your true nature and get marked by someone stronger than you, you can't even protest when you're unjustly trampled.
And here I was, running a race in this place with the goal of becoming the No. 1 manager in the industry.
I had to become strong on my own.
It was the start of a manager's duty, bodyguarding.
"Hey. Bully 1. Put out the cigarette. It stinks."
"What?"
"Do you have no manners? You do look like it."
"Huh? Did you just criticize her looks?"
"That's right."
Pfft! Bully 2 and Bully 3 noticed Bully 1's face flushing red and held back their laughter. I calmly looked at Bully 2.
"Bully 2. You have room to laugh? You're going to need to understand and remember exactly what I say from now on. You are Korean, aren't you?"
This time it was Bully 2's face that flushed hot. The attack seemed to have landed properly.
"Am I Korean? What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means you look exotic. What else would it mean?"
When I said it with one eyebrow scrunched, Bully 2, at a loss for words, let out a hollow laugh at the air.
The best defense is offense. When I threw the first punch before they could attack, they turned out far more helpless than I'd expected. It was a good start.
"Isn't this your first time acting?"
"So what if it is?"
"And yet you've got the nerve to gang up on someone on set?"
"What ganging up? We're just actors talking a little about the work."
Actors, they say. They were full of airs. They'd said they auditioned to get in, and they were carrying on as if they'd passed some kind of licensing exam.
Kids. Shall I give you a prophecy? Your lives won't change in the slightest because of this piece.
"But what's that got to do with you?"
Bully 3 asked. If you ask what it has to do with me, it's only human nature to answer. But answering a question with a question carries a bit more attack power.
"Weren't you the ones asking what kind of connections a mere bit part had to show up with a manager attached? How do you think I feel when you ask now what it has to do with me? If you have something to say to Chae-eun, didn't you already know that of course you have to say it through me?"
"He's being so fucking uptight."
"You don't seem to know since it's your first time, but what gets shot changes on set all the time. Well, not that it looks like you'll need to know that going forward."
"You've got a fucked-up way of talking. What are you, anyway?"
"Why do you keep asking when you already know? I'm Chae-eun's manager. The name's Lee San-woo."
Here, putting on a wide-eyed, clueless face is what riles the other side up more. With my eyes sparkling, I looked straight at them, one at a time.
I sensed them flinch.
"I'll treat an attack on Chae-eun as an attack on me. You don't seem to know since you have no managers, but that's what managers all do."
And I firmly held back the words that they'd never be called actors from here on. Instead.
"If you want to be called actors, do your acting only in front of the camera."
Heh. Only then did a small laugh come from beside me. Laughter kept leaking out of Chae-eun, who'd covered her mouth with her fist.
"That's enough, let's go get ready."
"Let's go, Chae-eun."
As I put an arm around Chae-eun's shoulders and went inside, every kind of curse came from behind my back. Unlike before, the voices were plainly deflated.
I'd spat out my words to suit the nature of bullies, weak before the strong and strong before the weak, who bow to anyone tougher, but those drained voices pricked a corner of my conscience a little.
Was I a little too harsh on girls who are still young? Was it somewhat petty of me?
Just then.
"San-woo oppa."
"Huh?"
"You didn't have to help me."
As expected. So this is about me trespassing inside the line she drew when she told me not to disturb her? But what she said next wasn't what I expected.
"Thank you for stepping in for me. I was so nervous earlier that I didn't greet you properly. I look forward to working with you."
And then she dipped her head in a bow. At the visible change in Chae-eun, who'd put up a wall against me with her talk of Jo Du-hwan, I found myself smiling too.
"Don't mention it. I'm your manager now, after all. If you need anything, tell me anytime."
"Then I do have a favor to ask."
She's definitely not the type to hold back.
"Please throw those glasses away right now."
Chae-eun burst out with the laughter she'd been holding in. With her tension completely gone, her clear laugh rang out and filled the hallway.
Right now it's only bodyguarding with my big mouth, though. It was a moment that made me covet the Stamina stat.