Chapter 11

Chapter 11

“Action!”

The lights flickered.

Under the fluorescent light, two people sat facing each other across a metal table.

Yoo Yeonjae moved first.

He slapped a file down onto the table.

“Kang Yunho.”

A cold call of his name.

“A man declared dead five years ago. How are you sitting here right now?”

Yoo Yeonjae’s gaze bore down on the crown of Park Songmin’s lowered head.

The man remained motionless.

Faint veins stood out along the wrists held in handcuffs.

Silence passed.

One second.

Two seconds.

From the corner of the set, the script supervisor glanced down at the script.

Her expression asked whether the cue for the line had been missed.

Then, at the three-second mark.

Park Songmin slowly raised his head.

“...I’ve been waiting.”

Inside those words were the convenience-store triangle kimbap, the study-room ceiling, his mother’s funeral, all of it.

Only the person speaking knew that, but everyone listening felt a chill without knowing why.

‘...What is with those eyes?’

The PD leaned toward the monitor.

This was where the terrible acting was supposed to appear.

Everyone in the industry knew Park Songhu was a terrible actor, and the plan had been to cover things with editing even if two simple lines came out awkward.

That had been the original plan.

‘But forget touch-ups or editing...’

The Park Songhu before him was swallowing the screen with a single line.

“What were you doing for five years? Start from the beginning.”

The tone pressed the suspect.

Park Songmin’s lips moved slowly.

“From the beginning. Everything.”

The weight of five years’ worth of evidence sat inside “from the beginning,” while “everything” carried the resolve to stop hiding.

“I’ve been waiting.”

“...”

Feeling what lay behind the words on his skin, Yoo Yeonjae was momentarily caught off guard.

‘He’s better than I expected.’

He was good.

Better than expected.

Because Yoo Yeonjae had gone in with the prejudice that Park Songhu was synonymous with terrible acting, his expectations had been at rock bottom, and Park Songhu had burst straight through that floor.

The timing of lifting his head was especially exquisite.

The script only said, “slowly raises his head,” but Park Songhu had given it breath.

Three seconds of silence.

During those three seconds, the tension in the interrogation room doubled, and the moment his head came up, all of it burst at once.

‘...What a shame.’

The scene ended there.

Actor Yoo Yeonjae genuinely thought so.

What would Kang Yunho have said next?

He wanted to play off him just a little longer.

Even though the scene was over.

“Cut! Okay!”

The PD shot out of his chair.

Applause erupted across the set.

Clap clap clap clap—

“That’s okay? So it’s a one-take?”

“One take? Seriously?”

“Wow... what’s with Songhu-ssi?”

“...He didn’t get buried even next to Yeonjae-ssi.”

Ending a scene in one take was extremely rare on a filming set.

It only happened when there was absolute confidence that it couldn’t possibly come out any better.

“...”

Park Songmin was barely managing to stand from the interrogation-room chair.

His legs had no strength.

He had been inside Kang Yunho throughout the entire shoot, and once he came out, his whole body went limp.

As soon as he stepped off the set, Jo Yonggi came running over first.

“Hyung! Hyung, that was insane just now!”

His voice was even trembling with emotion.

“I was watching the monitor from the side, and I swear I got goosebumps! Did you see the staff’s faces? Everyone had their mouths hanging open!”

“...”

“I seriously thought, wow, hyung must’ve studied acting like crazy during his hiatus. I almost cried.”

The PD was next, holding out a hand.

“Songhu-ssi, that was really good.”

Two or three staff members followed behind him.

“That was seriously incredible.”

“Your eyes were insane. Seriously.”

“It’s been a long time since I felt like this on set.”

‘...What is happening right now. They’re saying my acting was good?’

The staff’s praise didn’t stop.

Even getting ten comments on his web novel made his heart race, and now praise was pouring down on him right in front of his face!

“I-I should head to the makeup room now...”

For some reason, his face felt itchy with embarrassment.

As Park Songmin tried to escape, someone stepped in front of him.

“Actor Park Songhu.”

A middle-aged woman wearing glasses.

The noisy set suddenly fell silent.

“Writer Seo...?”

Seo Hayoung.

The writer of <​Hwain>.

The fact that she was here today at all was strange.

One staff member nudged another’s arm.

“Why is Writer Seo here?”

“No one said she was coming today.”

Seo Hayoung spoke.

“I watched your acting just now, and I’d like to add some lines.”

***

Park Songhu’s casting had first come up two weeks earlier.

-Writer, we’re thinking about using Park Songhu for the interrogation-room scene in the final episode.

“Park Songhu?”

-Yes. His face has such an impact...

“I’ll give you the face. What about his acting?”

-...Well.

“You thought it’d be fine because he only has two lines, didn’t you?”

-...Basically.”

“He can ruin two lines too, that man.”

Seo Hayoung was cold about it.

“This is the final episode of <​Hwain>. The ending scene of the number-one drama in the ratings, and you want to put in an actor notorious for bad acting? And someone with a controversy on top of that?”

The PD carefully added.

-But the atmosphere around him has changed lately. Did you watch <​Our Hospital>?

She hadn’t.

She didn’t watch variety shows.

-He’s not the old Park Songhu anymore. His buzz has gone up too, and now everyone’s talking because he even cried in an interview.

“...Cried?”

-Yes. But you know Park Songhu’s acting ability. People are saying there’s no way he could’ve produced tears that naturally, so it must have been genuine.

A hollow laugh escaped her.

The irony of bad acting becoming proof of sincerity.

-Writer, honestly, if you plant one face with overwhelming presence into the final episode of <​Hwain>, the aftertaste changes completely. With Park Songhu’s visuals, just sitting in that interrogation room will explode on screen. Yeonjae-ssi agreed too.

Yoo Yeonjae was picky about his scene partners.

If someone like him had said it was fine, then he had effectively acknowledged the visual synergy.

“Haa.”

Seo Hayoung searched for photos of Park Songhu.

Recent photos.

His return after hiatus.

His face was, well.

She had no choice but to admit it.

If that face sat beneath the interrogation-room fluorescent light, viewers would put down the remote.

“If his acting is too awful, cut him in editing.”

-Yes, of course.

“He only has two lines, so worst case, use the face and dub the voice in post.”

-D-Do we really need to go that far?

“You never know.”

And so she reluctantly agreed, and two weeks passed.

As the filming date drew closer, Seo Hayoung was seized by a strange impulse.

‘...Should I go take a look?’

She normally never visited filming sets.

Once she handed over the script, that was the end of it.

Directing was the PD’s job, and acting was the actors’ job.

Seo Hayoung’s philosophy was that if the writer stuck their nose into the set too, everyone only became uncomfortable.

And yet she was considering it now because.

Honestly, she wanted to see Park Songhu in person.

Seo Hayoung was human too.

It would be a shame to die without seeing the famous “face genius” she had only ever seen on screen.

Especially because seeing what he looked like sitting there wearing a character she had written piqued her curiosity as a writer.

‘Right. This is just a visual check.’

On the morning of filming, Seo Hayoung arrived at the studio and took a seat in a corner behind the monitors.

She hadn’t told anyone.

A spot where the staff wouldn’t notice her.

Her goal was to watch quietly, then leave quietly.

She saw Park Songhu sit in the interrogation-room chair after makeup.

Seo Hayoung was inwardly shocked.

‘...He’s insane in person. Why is his face so small?’

On top of that, the fatigue created by the makeup gave his features more depth.

The angle of the fluorescent light across his cheekbones, the shadows beneath his eyes.

‘Well, his face has always lived up to the hype.’

The problem was what came next.

‘Up to this point, he passes. But once the acting starts...’

“Action!”

Yoo Yeonjae’s line came first.

Sharp and precise.

As expected of Yoo Yeonjae.

Then the man across from him raised his head.

“...I’ve been waiting.”

‘...What?’

She had expected bad acting.

Awkward line reading, flat emotion, an isolated performance disconnected from everything around it.

That was what Park Songhu was supposed to deliver.

But what was this acting?

Almost whispered, yet somehow resonant enough to reach the far corners of the set.

And the weight of emotion layered over it.

“From the beginning. Everything.”

The set sank into silence, and Seo Hayoung’s mouth fell open.

‘...His acting improved this much? Giving that performance only two lines almost feels wasteful.’

Seo Hayoung knew her own writerly greed very well.

Whenever she met a good actor, she developed the disease of wanting to write more lines.

She couldn’t bear not knowing what kind of voice her written words would return in.

“Cut...! Cut! Okay!!”

Applause erupted.

She watched the staff surround Park Songhu and pour praise over him.

Seo Hayoung walked out.

She passed through the staff and stopped directly in front of Park Songhu.

“I watched your acting just now, and I’d like to add some lines.”

“...?”

“I mean exactly what I said. Watching Actor Park Songhu just now gave me a sudden burst of inspiration.”

Yoo Yeonjae paused with a bottle of water halfway to his mouth and looked over.

Writer Seo Hayoung appearing on a filming set was already unprecedented.

Declaring that she wanted to add lines on the spot was even more so.

Especially since Seo Hayoung was famous for her principle of not interfering on set.

And now she was saying she would break that principle for the first time.

The PD asked, bewildered.

“Writer, you mean... right now, here on set?”

“Yes.”

“How much are you planning to add?”

“I don’t know yet. I’ll know once I write it.”

The PD and assistant director exchanged looks.

Park Songmin stood in the middle of it all, pale as a sheet.

Writer Seo Hayoung asked him.

“Would you be okay with that?”

“...”

Park Songmin’s thoughts split in two.

The desire to refuse, and the worry that refusing here might hurt Park Songhu’s image.

The latter won.

Because Park Songhu was terrifying...

“...I’ll give it a try.”

“Good.”

Seo Hayoung dragged a folding table to one side of the set and sat down.

A Bluetooth keyboard sat in front of her tablet.

‘Hmm...’

This was Seo Hayoung’s first time adding lines on set.

Normally, she was the type to sit in her study at home with a cup of coffee, spending all night agonizing over and polishing one line at a time.

But now she was in the middle of the set, with staff moving around and actors waiting.

‘Kang Yunho.’

A character she had created.

A scene where a man everyone thought was dead sat in an interrogation room.

Originally, it was a scene designed only for the impact of the twist.

‘What else should I make him say?’

Letters began appearing one by one on the tablet.

Write, delete, delete, write again.

Whispers spread among the staff.

“Has Writer Seo ever added lines on set before?”

“No. Never.”

“Whoa... then did Park Songhu’s acting actually inspire her?”

“Honestly, that performance really was good.”

Seo Hayoung called the PD over.

“Can you look at this?”

The PD approached and looked at the tablet.

Additional dialogue between the detective and Kang Yunho.

Admiration spread across his face as he read.

“Wow, this is really good.”

Seo Hayoung nodded and pointed to one section.

“But this part. The key is what tone to take it in...”

This time, she called the two actors over.

Yoo Yeonjae and Park Songmin.

“Could you both come over here for a moment?”

For this part, she decided to borrow the instincts of the people who were experiencing the characters most closely.

“Here, the detective pushes him one more time. Kang Yunho said, ‘From the beginning. Everything,’ and then he really does start from the beginning. But the beginning he talks about isn’t the point the detective expects.”

Yoo Yeonjae’s eyes moved left and right.

He grasped the structure of the dialogue quickly.

“The tone of Kang Yunho’s last line is the key.”

“Yes. What emotion do we put into this line?”

The PD joined from beside them.

“I think anger would get a stronger response from viewers.”

Seo Hayoung disagreed.

“Anger makes it predictable. This is someone who spent five years in hiding. If he’s been arrested and is sitting in front of a detective, then explodes in anger... it makes him too shallow.”

Yoo Yeonjae offered an idea.

“What about playing it calmly?”

“Too calm would feel flat.”

They were deadlocked.

Not anger, not resignation, not calmness, but something else.

All three fell into thought, unable to identify what that something was.

Park Songmin stood one step behind watching, when one line caught his eye.

Kang Yunho’s final line.

‘!’

The instant he read it, something flashed through his mind.

That sensation he got when writing web novels.

When a character’s past and present joined into a single line, and he suddenly knew exactly what emotion they needed to express in this moment.

‘Anger? Resignation?’

No.

What would someone who had hidden for five years feel when sitting in front of a detective again?

‘Relief.’

He had hidden for revenge, and returned for revenge.

But the moment he sat across from the detective, the end finally came into sight.

The freedom of knowing he no longer had to hide.

“Um...”

Seo Hayoung, Yoo Yeonjae, and the PD all turned toward him at once.

Only then did Park Songmin realize he had spoken, but it was too late.

He had already called out.

“Yes, Songhu-ssi.”

“...”

In the end, instinct as the writer MiniSong forced him to continue.

“...May I make a suggestion?”

The Genius Actor Is Hiding Twins