Chapter 19

The behind-the-scenes crew was having the time of their lives.

“Do-yeon, I——”

“Again!”

“Ah, I haven’t even finished the line!”

“Hmph, agaaain!”

“Do-yeon……”

“Again, agaaaaaain!”

“I’m going to lose my mind!”

Yeon Do-yeon’s actress — the rookie who’d swallowed the script reading whole with her projection and her immersion — was now single-handedly cranking out “Again!” content for them.

“What exactly is the problem here!”

“It’s stiff, that’s the problem! What kind of Do-hun is that!”

“‘That Do-hun’? Are you dropping formalities on me right now——!”

“I said, what kind of Do-hun is that!”

Back when Seong Hye-sim had first arranged the coaching, the air around them had been so awkward it practically froze solid. But somewhere along the way, the two of them had gotten close.

“Argh, fine, you try it!”

“Yes, I will! Watch!”

It looked, from the outside, like nothing more than two people shouting at each other.

Either way, to everyone else watching, it was simply fascinating — a rookie barely into her debut project scolding a senior, and then turning around to deliver a near-flawless performance of a role that wasn’t even hers.

Genuinely, every bit of it felt fresh.

And on top of that——

“There it is again, that picture. How do the actors playing Do-yeon and Do-hun always end up looking exactly like that?”

“Right? The chemistry’s really good.”

Of all people, it had to be the two playing siblings in the show who kept handing the crew footage like this.

As far as the behind-the-scenes team was concerned, good fortune had just rolled right into their laps without them lifting a finger.

“……How’s my Do-hun, then!”

“Th-that’s actually good! You should just play Do-hun! Nice, double-cast yourself!”

“Don’t say things you don’t mean!”

“Then what am I supposed to do! Even when I say you’re good, you still yell at me!”

“For the record, senior’s pretty good too, you know? Don’t you know teaching someone who’s already good is harder?”

“……Is that so?”

Well, would you look at that. Now he was grinning ear to ear, happily soaking up the coaching.

Byeon Seo-jun, who’d been visibly flustered after fumbling his lines, seemed to have gotten past whatever had been weighing on him.

Grateful, he reached out and planted a hand on top of Joo Sae-i’s head — so much smaller than his own.

The crew’s camera caught the handsome actor’s face, smiling as though some knot in his chest had finally come loose. It was the kind of smile that left anyone watching feeling refreshed too.

“I’m all set up! What if I have to redo my hair now because of you!”

“Then redo it.”

“I’m going to lose my mind!”

Where it had once been Byeon Seo-jun groaning that he was losing his mind, the tables had completely turned once the coaching ended.

Joo Sae-i stamping her feet, trying to wriggle free of Byeon Seo-jun’s grip, made for an extremely endearing shot.

“Oh-ho, look at her squirm.”

“……!”

“I don’t know what I was ever afraid of. You’re great at acting, sure, but you’re still just a kid.”

“I don’t know what it was, but is it sorted out now? The thing with you not getting your lines out?”

“Yeah. Thanks to you.”

Having finally pried Byeon Seo-jun’s hand off, Sae-i broke into a bright smile, relieved.

The crew members filming the whole scene couldn’t help smiling along. Without quite meaning to, they were turning into Joo Sae-i fans.

“……Are the two of them actually siblings or something?”

“Even the vibe matches, kind of. Whoever cast this nailed it……”

Watching the pair bicker like real siblings one moment and soften right back up the next, the behind-the-scenes team all but licked their lips. This was footage worth editing.

The team lead, who’d been knocking around the video industry for years, had a feeling about this one.

The second episode one airs, if we drop this behind-the-scenes clip, the reaction’s going to be insane.

(EN) [Making] The Melodrama Siblings Do-Do🥹 Behind the camera, it’s all reversal-charm bickering, like real siblings(?)😂 #YourBlueName｜EP.1

[Making Shorts] What happens when Yeon Do-yeon plays Yeon Do-hun? A genius rookie shows up🔥 #YourBlueName #KDS

Already, you could see the future where InTube’s comment section and every community site would be on fire over the two of them.

Agreeing to be coached by Joo Sae-i hadn’t been the wrong call.

Back when Seong Hye-sim had first grabbed him and dragged him off to her, he hadn’t imagined it would work this well.

Sae-i hadn’t explained all that much. She’d simply watched him act, shown him her own version, and given him the chance to realize things for himself.

Now that we’re closer, she really does feel like a little sister……

She’d trembled calling him senior earlier, and now here she was, in front of him, yipping and scolding like a little Chihuahua — and somehow she reminded him of his own younger sibling back home.

The moment Joo Sae-i started to feel comfortable to be around, he’d spotted the gaps in his own acting that needed fixing. More precisely, the parts he’d been missing while straining not to be outdone in front of her.

I think I understand now why Senior Seong Hye-sim suggested this coaching.

Acting wasn’t something you pulled off alone — it was something you melted into, together with your scene partner. The more he understood Joo Sae-i, the more freely they treated each other, the clearer the Yeon Do-hun he needed to express became to him.

It felt like new life had been poured into acting that had gone stagnant.

Byeon Seo-jun and Joo Sae-i got through the resumed filming of that scene in a single take, without a single NG.

The shoot went on smoothly after that. Even once he’d finished all his scenes for the day, Byeon Seo-jun didn’t leave — he stayed on set.

All just to keep his eyes on Joo Sae-i’s Yeon Do-yeon a little longer.

Her acting had a way of making you feel like you’d grow just from watching it.

Before long, the set was gearing up for the last scene of the day.

“Heard you kicked up a ruckus with Byeon Seo-jun.”

Do Je-hyeon, who’d arrived late after finishing a photoshoot schedule, struck up a conversation with me as I sat resting.

Since his setup wasn’t finished yet, a makeup artist was still fussing over him beside his chair.

Do Je-hyeon’s schedule was so packed that today we only had a single scene to film together as Do-yeon and Ha-jin. Even that was short.

He’s going to all that trouble for just one scene. He really does have it rough too.

If I ever got this busy, would I have to live like Do Je-hyeon does? Honestly, the thought didn’t scare me so much as make my heart race a little.

I want to shoot more, faster, more of it……

Having gotten one taste of life on set, I felt like I could get addicted.

Ugh, isn’t there a next project coming in somewhere…… I quietly pictured myself wandering around like a hyena, hunting down my next role.

Anyway, a “ruckus”! The nerve, calling my sacred coaching session that.

My mouth itched to explain just how effective that coaching had been.

If he knew that every single scene Byeon Seo-jun and I had in it got through without a single NG, he wouldn’t dare call it a “ruckus”!

Do Je-hyeon would never know, not if he died, how much the crew had praised me.

Byeon Seo-jun, feeling secretly grateful too, had lingered on set long after his own scenes wrapped — even though he’d had somewhere to be.

“……Still, try not to get tangled up with that guy for nothing.”

“Why?”

As far as I remembered, Byeon Seo-jun had never had a scandal.

Wait, that wasn’t quite right.

Right after he’d switched over to acting, there had been a brief controversy about him acting “like a robot”……but he’d worked through that with endless practice and his basic talent.

I looked at Do Je-hyeon, puzzled, and he added:

“He’s not a bad person, and I’ve got some history with him too.”

“……Then why?”

“I’m worried he’ll come down hard on you. You said he even raised his voice at you during the coaching earlier.”

……Did he somehow not hear that I’d yelled too?

The unease that had flickered through me at “he’s not a bad person” settled right back down.

We’d actually gotten fairly close, and it would’ve worried me if he’d turned out to secretly be a bad person underneath — I wouldn’t have been able to focus on filming with him after that.

“Anyway, if that guy ever picks on you, tell me.”

First he tells me not to get tangled up with him because he might come down hard on me, now he’s telling me to report it if he picks on me……

I appreciated it, but wasn’t this a strange thing to hear from the same Do Je-hyeon who’d brushed me off and talked down to me the moment we met?

And! There was something Do Je-hyeon seemed to be conveniently forgetting right now.

“No, wait, I keep telling you I’m your noona.”

“……”

“Don’t pretend you didn’t hear that.”

I’d thought he kept calling me “you” because he’d forgotten I was a year older, but no — he was just doing it entirely on his own terms. The way he brushed it off was infuriating.

“You heard every word of that……”

“Do-yeon, Ha-jin, let’s get ready to shoot!”

Timing was not on my side.

Right on cue, Do Je-hyeon — his setup finally finished — sprang up at the staff’s call. Without a single reply to my being his noona, he simply held a hand out to me, still seated.

“Let’s go.”

Fine, whatever. Telling myself to just get this shot done and go home, I grabbed his hand and looked up at him — and that was the moment.

……Now I see why they cast Do Je-hyeon.

His skin, tanned a shade darker on purpose, and a hairstyle so naturally tousled it looked untouched.

A pretty boy who seemed to care nothing for grooming, and yet, on nothing but his raw looks, had won over the hearts of every resident of that little countryside village of Oksong-ri.

Do Je-hyeon was Yoo Ha-jin, through and through.