Chapter 22

The set of Your Blue Name.

This is making me uneasy.

Director Woo Byeong-hwa glanced at Joo Sae-i as she prepared for the next scene, and frowned.

Joo Sae-i — the rookie who’d landed the famously difficult role of young Yeon Do-yeon on a single audition.

The first time Director Woo watched her act, there’d been nothing but satisfaction.

Dozens of actresses had tried out for Yeon Do-yeon, but none of them had made the character feel as alive as Joo Sae-i did.

So it made sense that Writer Choi Gi-jeong, one of the people closest to the production, kept singing Joo Sae-i’s praises.

But once Byeon Seo-jun — the very actor Director Woo had been grooming to carry the show — started praising her performance too, a sense of alarm set in.

Watching Joo Sae-i through several days of filming, Director Woo had come to a thought that was, well……

She’s too much like Sim Ju-yeon.

Sim Ju-yeon. The actress who’d played the female lead in Trap Marriage, the project that had made Woo Byeong-hwa a name in the industry.

Like Joo Sae-i, she’d overflowed with talent, and that overflow had drawn people to her.

Discovering genius was the whole reason Director Woo had gotten into this line of work in the first place. Sim Ju-yeon had been the one true genius of a lifetime to walk into that career.

Director Woo had tried to nurture her, to raise her up.

But it had ended badly.

—Rookie Lead Actress S, Relentless String of “Power Abuse” Allegations on Social Media……Dropped From Upcoming Project?

A disaster, through and through. As Sim Ju-yeon grew more arrogant, the exposés about her mistreatment of others spread from one to the next until they were everywhere.

Under a hail of stones from the press and the public, Sim Ju-yeon had been forced to step back from the camera. Along with her went a project that had specifically wanted her for its lead.

Having lived through that failure once, Woo Byeong-hwa had come away with one firm belief: coddle a genius too much, and they’re bound to turn arrogant.

It wasn’t as though Sim Ju-yeon had been rude from the very start. It was that everyone calling her a genius had gone to her head.

Ju-yeon acted exactly like that girl, back at the beginning too.

She’d gotten comfortable awfully fast with Byeon Seo-jun, a veteran of the industry even counting his years as a singer, and she’d shown no hesitation at all around Do Je-hyeon either, despite the clear gap in experience between them even as peers in age.

It brought back, almost exactly, the memory of how carelessly Sim Ju-yeon used to treat her seniors on set.

From what Director Woo saw in Joo Sae-i, two possibilities followed.

One was that Joo Sae-i, like Sim Ju-yeon, was a genius bound to grow full of herself. The other was……

Maybe she’s just plain good-natured.

But Director Woo leaned toward the former. Joo Sae-i hardly seemed naive enough for the latter — she looked out for her own interests quite capably.

Even her closeness with Seong Hye-sim read as a sign she knew how to build connections when it mattered.

Like right now.

“Sae-i, I swear, watching you film, it really feels like I’m looking at Yeon Do-yeon herself.”

“……Quiet.”

Director Woo cut off the filming assistant mid-praise of Joo Sae-i, and simply watched her for a while.

Joo Sae-i bowed her head to greet everyone whose eyes she met. When standing, she bent at the waist a full ninety degrees, the picture of manners.

If anything, that only deepened Director Woo’s frown.

Before she’d turned arrogant, Sim Ju-yeon — back when first discovered — had fooled everyone with exactly that kind of politeness.

Human greed had no end, and once a person caught a glimpse of the summit, something in their nature drove them to step on whoever stood in their way to get there. That very nature was what had dragged Sim Ju-yeon down.

Acting that draws the eye is good. Wonderful, even.

But what if she catches my attention, only to collapse just like Sim Ju-yeon did?

Everyone on set treated the ever-polite Joo Sae-i warmly, but it was precisely this worry that made Director Woo wary of her.

With a heavy sigh, Director Woo shook off the thought and called Joo Sae-i over for the next scene.

“Let’s get set up for the Yeon Do-yeon shoot.”

“Yes!”

As if she’d been waiting for exactly that, Joo Sae-i clasped her hands together and ran straight to the set.

Her eyes sparkled as she waited for filming to begin, proof that her talk of working hard hadn’t been empty words.

That kid Ju-yeon always had the eyes of a dead fish, by comparison……

The look in Joo Sae-i’s eyes was nothing like the listless, indifferent gaze Sim Ju-yeon used to carry even in her rookie days, when she’d coasted purely on talent.

What a feeling, honestly.

Joo Sae-i seemed to simply, purely enjoy acting. Like a kid out on a playground.

Director Woo closed both eyes for a moment.

A thought crossed the director’s mind. Maybe the search for Sim Ju-yeon in Joo Sae-i had been deliberate all along — a prejudice about what a genius was supposed to look like, projected onto her.

A genius who truly loved acting would be grateful for every opportunity handed to her. Just like Joo Sae-i, standing right there.

“Hngh……”

Still, there’d been too many burns from Sim Ju-yeon to trust Joo Sae-i just yet.

If those sparkling eyes ever turned into what Sim Ju-yeon’s had become, the blow would be a heavy one. Deliberately picturing a Joo Sae-i who’d changed the way Sim Ju-yeon had, Director Woo carefully rubbed at that same chin.

Some time later.

Once the day’s filming wrapped, Director Woo Byeong-hwa couldn’t hide a sense of admiration.

What on earth is up with this kid?

Do Je-hyeon, fine, he already had acting experience behind him. But what was Joo Sae-i’s excuse?

What had she possibly been doing with her life, to read so well on camera at that age, better than grown adult actors?

Director Woo hadn’t let the guard down around Joo Sae-i even so — which meant every little slip should have stood out immediately.

Did she get trained somewhere like the National Intelligence Service or something?

There was no other way to explain today’s footage.

Director Woo hadn’t expected Joo Sae-i to get through today’s shoot this smoothly. Even assuming she did well, a few retakes along the way had seemed inevitable.

After all, no matter how sharp her script analysis or her acting sense, Joo Sae-i was still a rookie with hardly any real experience on set.

Rookies always gave themselves away in quiet, static scenes like this one. Sim Ju-yeon, back in the years Director Woo spent raising her, had been exactly the same.

In scenes full of movement, the rough edges were hard to spot, but in a still pose, every bit of inexperience showed clearly.

It tended to show up in things like how an actor held their neck, or where their eyes wandered.

That was exactly why static scenes, which looked easy to everyone watching, were in fact some of the hardest to pull off.

Even actors with years under their belt would rather be given something more intense to act, and that says it all.

And yet.

Nobody taught her this, and she can just lie there and act out sunlight?

The scene was young Yeon Do-yeon and Yoo Ha-jin lying on a wooden bench, talking as the sun fell over them.

Joo Sae-i’s performance on that bench wasn’t simply a matter of showing she was dazzled by the light.

Her eyes fell shut naturally against the glare pouring down, only to flutter open again and again out of the urge to steal a glance at Yoo Ha-jin.

In close-up, even her uncurled lashes caught the sunlight and trembled, faint and fine.

From her flushed skin to the beads of sweat just starting to form, there wasn’t a single part of the shot that Joo Sae-i’s performance hadn’t soaked into.

This was, frankly……

That child is acting out a pleasant summer day.

And that wasn’t even all of it.

Joo Sae-i had a gift for reading the hidden intent the production had built into a scene.

The scene where Yeon Do-yeon’s heart truly opens to Yoo Ha-jin. The very first take had only been meant as a test, so no one had bothered specifying how she should lie.

At first, Joo Sae-i had kept her legs neatly together. But as she talked with Ha-jin, little by little, she’d turned them to point toward him.

There’s a saying that a person’s toes point toward whoever has opened their heart, whoever they’re drawn to.

Most people, even if they knew that, wouldn’t think to translate it into their performance on the spot.

Buzz, buzz.

Just then, the phone in Director Woo’s pocket chimed twice with a notification.

[How’d today’s shoot go? I was going to drop by to see how Do-yeon and Ha-jin looked on set, but I held off.]

[Did little Do-yeon settle in okay? Been too busy wrapping up the script to keep an eye on things.]

A message from Writer Choi Gi-jeong.

Reading the writer’s concern for Joo Sae-i, Director Woo swallowed back a bitter smile.

Worry about someone who actually needs it.

There was still every chance Joo Sae-i could end up turning into another Sim Ju-yeon. But as far as her acting went, there was nothing left to worry about — that much was certain.

[What’s there to worry about? That kid’s out here eating everyone alive……]

[Still keeping half an eye on her, though. Gonna watch a while longer.]

Whether it’s a passion that’ll burn out fast — that’ll become clear soon enough, just by watching.

Director Woo meant to keep a close eye on where Joo Sae-i’s path led. Maybe that would be enough to stop one more genius from turning into another Sim Ju-yeon before it happened.