Chapter 23

The child-actress portion of the shoot was slowly running toward its end.

After wrapping today’s filming, I didn’t head straight home — I stayed behind on set.

Adult Do-yeon!

Our shooting schedules never lined up, so I’d never gotten to see Actress Park Yeon-hui’s grown-up Do-yeon. Today, finally, my chance had come.

Just the thought that I’d get to see what adult Yeon Do-yeon looked like was enough to put life back into a body that had gone limp with exhaustion only minutes ago.

“Sae-i, drink this.”

Director Woo Byeong-hwa held out a drink to me. My throat happened to be parched, so I took it gratefully and drank.

“That’s right, you said you wanted to see adult Do-yeon?”

“Yes!”

“That’s some enthusiasm for acting, huh. Don’t lose it.”

Maybe it was just my imagination, but the director’s gaze, which had been sharp on me for a while now, seemed to have softened a little.

My heart pounding, feet shifting with excitement, that was when Park Yeon-hui took her place on set.

Why does she look so pale, though?

Now that I thought about it, Park Yeon-hui’s complexion had been strangely dim ever since the last script reading.

I’d heard she was always bright and cheerful, so it was odd.

Come to think of it — around the time I’d just turned into an adult, hadn’t Park Yeon-hui, who’d been doing so well, disappeared from view at some point?

Was she in a slump, and that’s why she looked so dark?

“Okay, ready…… action!”

Either way, the first take of the scene began. Just as I craned my neck to watch adult Yeon Do-yeon from a distance—

“The little Do-yeon~ Joo Sae-i, was it? You act so well!”

“Oh, thank you!”

“You haven’t signed with an agency yet, have you?”

What is this?

A company representative who’d been trailing after Park Yeon-hui during setup had come up to talk to me. He pressed a business card into my hand and vanished just as quickly.

Ah, I missed seeing adult Yeon Do-yeon!

Was it normal for someone to wander off like that while their own agency’s actress was filming? I was practically a beginner on set, so I couldn’t really say.

I gave the card that had landed in my hand a light glance.

[Mora Planning, Team Leader Kim Song-jun]

Mora Planning, huh.

The name gave me the same oddly familiar feeling I’d had the first time I heard Woon Seong-ha’s name. Had there been some kind of issue?

“Cut! Yeon-hui, were you not quite focused? Let’s go one more time!”

Ah, looks like they have to reshoot.

Just as I stood up, determined that this time I would really take in adult Yeon Do-yeon—

“Give that back to me……!”

Park Yeon-hui came running toward me, shouting in a frightening voice, and snatched the card right out of my hand.

She looked around as if checking whether the company representative was nearby, and in the next instant, she tore the card to shreds.

“……!”

Wait, why did she suddenly rush over and tear up the card?

Caught off guard, I looked at Park Yeon-hui, then at the unrecognizable scraps of the card, then back at her again.

“You — Sae-i, never, ever work with that company.”

“What? No, but why……”

“If I tell you not to, just don’t!”

We’d barely even exchanged a word before now, since our filming schedules never overlapped, and yet Park Yeon-hui was calling me Sae-i and warning me off like this.

Someone who barely knew me being this alarmed and this insistent had to have a reason. Especially when it was her own agency.

One possibility was that the company was so good she wanted to monopolize its talent for herself. The other was……

Was there some kind of controversy?

With Park Yeon-hui standing right in front of me, I dug back through my memories of my first life.

Park Yeon-hui. Mora Planning. Kim Song-jun.

I must have thought about it for quite a while, because a news article flickered through my mind.

An article about Park Yeon-hui filing a lawsuit against Team Leader Kim Song-jun and the CEO of Mora Planning.

More precisely, it was a case about how Kim Song-jun had habitually made excessive demands of Park Yeon-hui, and threatened her with breach of contract whenever she refused — and how it had gone all the way to trial.

Why did I forget about this!

I’d heard Park Yeon-hui won that trial. So I’d assumed she would come back to the industry, and it had puzzled me when she vanished instead.

Mora Planning had been praised as the agency that turned a young Park Yeon-hui into a famous actress, but once the case broke, they were treated like trash and effectively blacklisted from the industry.

Some particularly nasty netizens had even painted Park Yeon-hui as an ungrateful villain who’d sued the very people who raised her.

I think I understand now why she vanished and never came back to the industry……

With that many comments piling up, it wasn’t strange at all that she’d want nothing more to do with this business.

“Yeon-hui, we’re resuming filming!”

With the lead actress suddenly having stepped away, the production crew called for Park Yeon-hui. Even as she had no choice but to head back in front of the camera, she couldn’t quite tear her gaze away from me.

“Team Leader Kim, never get tangled up with that scum!”

“…….”

“You hear me, kiddo?”

For someone I barely even knew to warn me off this hard.

Honestly, it was the kind of thing she could have just ignored, since it wasn’t her own problem or something involving someone close to her.

She could have glanced at it from a distance and simply thought, that kid’s going to step in it, poor thing, clicked her tongue, and moved on.

“……Thank you for the advice.”

Some people might call it meddling, but to me, that kind of heart was deeply…… moving.

I wasn’t the only one who seemed moved — the acting coach, waiting for the next shoot, came shuffling over to stand beside me. It seemed she’d been watching the whole thing unfold from a distance.

“Yeon-hui’s a good kid, hardworking too, it’s really a shame. The company just won’t let her go.”

“Ah…….”

In this industry, it was still far too common for young, naive child actors to get caught up in what amounted to slave contracts. Park Yeon-hui was probably one of those victims too.

I really hoped she’d manage to get out of that contract safely……

“Senior Yeon-hui, I mean. She’s amazing at acting too, right?”

“She sure is. She’s one of the few real talents among kids her age.”

She’s lost a bit of her spark lately, probably stressed over the company…… the coach murmured quietly.

So her wings are being clipped because of the company.

A still-young talent, like a fresh sprout. Someone who could have been crushed just for running into the wrong company.

This is exactly the kind of story our Chairman Joo Tae-baek would love.

……Should I mention it to Grandfather sometime?

School started at nine in the morning.

It was now six in the morning.

And I was……

“I’m off.”

I bowed politely to the ladies of Jaedamjae too, and headed for the gate.

Even with plenty of room to spare, it only took thirty minutes to get from home to school, but there was another reason I was leaving at six.

Not there!

To shake off Ryu Do-gyeong, who insisted on driving all the way to Jaedamjae just to ride the bus to school with me.

This was now the third day running that I’d set out this early in the morning.

Because I left so early, the bus was relatively empty too. Since I got to sit down the whole way, it was a win for me.

Being a prestigious private school, a few third-years were heading in wearing gym clothes. Probably the kind of students gunning for the regular college entrance exam, or something like that.

I walked past the second-year hallway and peeked into the other classrooms. Almost nobody had arrived yet, so the lights were still off.

Our classroom, though, was a little different.

Slide, click.

When I pushed open the sliding door and stepped inside, the one waiting to welcome me was……

“…….”

Scratch that “welcome” part.

Honestly, he wasn’t welcoming me at all, but there he was, my deskmate, Woon Seong-ha, who always arrived earlier than me and slept slumped over his desk.

It felt awkward to wake someone who was sleeping, so I just sat down next to Woon Seong-ha and busied myself reading my script.

I used to try talking to him a few times once he woke up, but not anymore. Getting ignored over and over got embarrassing.

I pulled the script out of my bag. The child-actress portion I’d be filming was already racing toward its end.

So the script I was reading now was for after the transition to adult Yeon Do-yeon. And among that, the long-awaited final episode.

I wiped my hand once against my school skirt and turned the cover of the script with a reverent heart.

Just then.

Ding!

A CocoaTalk notification chimed.

I didn’t even need to check to know. It had to be Ryu Do-gyeong. By now he’d have arrived at Jaedamjae.

Sure enough.

[Joo Sae-i]

[Does it feel good, going off alone and leaving me behind for days now?]

……What would happen if I honestly answered that it actually felt really nice, getting to school in peace like this?

Just imagining Ryu Do-gyeong closing in on me, radiating pure frost, was enough to raise goosebumps on my arms.

Let’s keep that answer in reserve for now.

Since Ryu Do-gyeong was probably still at Jaedamjae, all my enthusiasm for reading the script had been thoroughly ruined anyway.

I got straight up from my seat and left the classroom. Destination: the school store!

My old school didn’t even have a store!

After the regression, when I chose to transfer schools, I’d always wanted to enjoy the atmosphere of a real high school store. My heart racing with excitement, I quickened my steps.

[Heading to class, so wait nicely]

Having no idea that there was a message from Ryu Do-gyeong I’d yet to check, I hadn’t the slightest clue.