T/N: Be starstruck. Hmph <3
“Gently sweep your fingertips across it, as if stroking leather on a sofa. Then bring them to the corner of your mouth.”
Even as the full shoot got underway, Lee Jinmyeong’s catastrophe-circuit wouldn’t stop whirring.
That just now was a fluke. Once he’s inside the frame he’s bound to be underwhelming…
But this prediction of Lee’s went gloriously wide off the mark.
Even looking through the viewfinder, he felt himself getting drawn in.
The compositions he’d planned in advance had long since evaporated from his mind.
The kid was moving exactly as instructed, and yet it gave Lee an indecent feeling, like he was peeping on someone’s private life.
The peak came when Rowoon’s fingers, which had been caressing the sofa’s surface as if tending to a lover, brushed across his lower lip.
The finale was that last eye-smile, locking eyes with the camera.
“Ghk—…!”
A sudden pain gripped Lee Jinmyeong’s chest. He clutched at his heart.
“Mr. Lee Rowoon…?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Why did you smile just now?”
“…Was it not good?”
That last smile was definitely not something Lee had ordered.
“Shall we go again?”
“…No. I’m curious why you smiled there.”
“Ah. Reading the storyboard brief, the theme was ‘the space I love.’ And when you told me to stroke the sofa, it immediately made me think of lovers’ love. There are many kinds of love, and I figured you must have had a reason for specifically directing me to use the fingertips. So at the end, if you’re looking at the lover you love… a smile would come, right? So I smiled. …Would it have been better not to?”
It was a 100/100 interpretation.
If he’d been a professor, he might have given the kid an A+ and seriously recommended grad school.
It was exactly what Lee had in mind.
Taewoon’s soon-to-launch new sofa had leather so soft it was beyond words.
When you sank into it, it embraced you, cozy as if you were being gently buried—sublimely comfortable.
From there Lee had gotten the idea.
Who says furniture has to advertise specs? Sometimes heightening the sensory trait is the more intuitive move.
Of course, he hadn’t written it out that explicitly in the boards.
He’d only sketched the movements and jotted action cues for how the body should travel.
He knew Rowoon had arrived thirty minutes early and looked through everything, but still…
How… how can he be this delicate and this quick on the uptake?
To grasp the question-setter’s intent this perfectly.
And in that tiny window of time!
The “stubborn, self-willed” character readout glitched.
At the same time…
I’m tired.
An acute fatigue washed over Lee Jinmyeong.
Listening to the two voices in his head say the same thing in stereo and riding the brakes on both was exhausting.
Of course, Chairman Seo hadn’t shoved in some random person.
I should’ve realized from the start.
Grinding his teeth and saying “we’ll see” out of wounded pride had probably been the mistake.
In the end, he raised the white flag.
A perfect defeat.
“We’ll take five.”
Lee called an earlier-than-expected break.
Rowoon was nonplussed.
He’s been asking me things since a while ago… does he not like me after all?
From the moment he walked in and the director pinned him with that fierce gaze, it had felt off.
He’d pushed through the awkwardness to greet him, but what he got back wasn’t a reply—just a brusquely extended hand.
Does that mean he doesn’t even want to talk?
Yet for that, the sudden dip in the karma score felt anything but ordinary.
[The karma score has decreased by 10.]
The alert had popped the instant his eyes first met Lee’s.
If that’s any indication, maybe he doesn’t completely hate me…
But the way the overall director was coming at him this hard, it might all be in his head.
Assuming the system even can be mistaken.
Well… it is what it is.
What Rowoon had learned while working off the body’s bad karma lately was this:
There’s no need to cling and fuss over someone who dislikes you right now!
Just do your job properly, quietly.
If you keep at it, the time will come when everyone recognizes the effort.
Seeing is believing, as they say.
No matter how much you talk, if your actions are the same, people will just say you’re all mouth and your image will get worse. Better to show them directly.
The one saving grace was that the decreasing karma alerts gave him indirect confirmation he was doing well.
Contrary to his first impression that the guy would be impossibly exacting, the work flowed more easily than he’d expected.
…He’s not picking fights over nothing, at least?
He’d figured they’d be doing infinite retakes, but no.
All Rowoon did was follow the director’s requests.
“Look here”—he looked there. “Now look there”—he looked there.
He moved obediently, as told.
If he stuck his neck out and got nitpicked, that would be trouble.
Still… this much I could add, couldn’t I?
The boards Lee had laid out were certainly not bad.
But to Rowoon’s eye, it was there:
If they just added the slightest touch, the result could be better.
“As if stroking leather on a sofa…”
Listening to Lee’s direction, Rowoon thought:
This much… should be fine, I think.
Even recalling the overall flow and storyboard explained before the shoot, nothing seemed like it would cause a problem.
So he slipped in one small addition.
“Why did you smile just now…?”
He hadn’t expected that to be the reaction.
Still, at least the man wasn’t completely closed-off.
Lee, who’d looked seconds away from calling for another take, listened to Rowoon’s read and then—
“…Good. Very good. Good. Let’s keep going exactly like that.”
—gave an affirmative reply.
It really is okay, right?
The voice sounded like it was holding something down, and his expression looked a bit unusual, but in any case, the shoot itself proceeded without major issue.
Aside from the sudden new habit of Lee repeatedly calling Rowoon over to stand in front of the monitor.
It was already the third break.
“Uh, Rowoon…?”
As he was getting a touch-up, his manager approached gingerly.
Hesitating, the manager couldn’t get the words out; Rowoon supplied them for him.
“You think he’s giving me a hard time?”
“…Want to pull the plug now? I’ll go say something and smooth it over.”
His manager’s eyes were glossy with unshed tears.
“How could I? You were over the moon about this. You said it was a huge opportunity. I’m fine.”
“Really? I mean, even to me this feels like too much. No matter how famous he is, this is a bit…”
“I’m really fine.”
Now the tip of the manager’s nose was red; Rowoon soothed him with practiced ease.
Well… the karma score is going down, so I don’t think he outright hates me. And the way he’s doing it kinda feels helpful, too.
No one had been more thrilled about “a Taewoon ad!” or waited more eagerly than his manager.
Why was that manager now gnawing a handkerchief, asking whether he deserved this treatment?
There was only one reason.
Did a ghost that died yearning to “monitor playback” attach itself to him…?
Scene after scene, Lee had obsessively called Rowoon over.
He’d plant him in front of the monitor and make him review the take they’d just shot.
Which, of course, is normal.
Monitoring after a take is an essential part of the process.
But the frequency was way too high.
It was like taking a photo, checking it, taking another, checking it—over and over.
It’s kind of… like f**ing boot-camp training…*
From a bystander’s perspective, it wasn’t hard to see why he’d be frustrated.
Thanks to that, the atmosphere on set creaked like a sheet of black ice.
Just a moment ago, for instance:
“Mr. Lee Rowoon. Come take a look.”
“Yes.”
“What do you think?”
Hadn’t that exact exchange already repeated who knows how many times?
But it’s definitely helping.
When Lee first summoned him to the monitor, Rowoon had thought:
…He called me to make me reflect, didn’t he?
After all, this was the man who’d ignored his greeting and offered only a handshake.
He was clearly only taking this gig under pressure from the chairman, and it was obvious he wasn’t thrilled.
There was no reason in the world for him to look kindly on Rowoon.
So he’d assumed the guy was just messing with him.
And yet…
…Yeah, that’s worth reflecting on.
Even to Rowoon’s eye, the rough spots showed.
The breath and eye-line just now synced a bit unnaturally. If they land at the same time, it’ll feel less awkward.
Stripping out personal feelings and looking as objectively as he could, little points needing work kept popping up.
It was passably okay, but passable wasn’t what he wanted.
Leaving regrets behind was off the menu now.
So, while Lee waited for his answer, Rowoon simply said:
“Can we go again?”
Lee looked at him with an unreadable expression, then nodded.
Maybe he’s just relieved I listen well?
Either way, what mattered wasn’t Lee. It was the result Rowoon produced.
He’d already taken a Taewoon ad. There would certainly be grumbling.
If the final product was underwhelming on top of that, this wouldn’t be an opportunity, it would be a poisoned chalice.
His reputation, just starting to recover, could nosedive to the absolute bottom.
Back in the Garion days, we’d repeat a three-minute stage more than twenty times sometimes.
Compared to that, this was nothing.
Thanks to the repetitions, the little things that had grated started disappearing.
For someone who supposedly dislikes me, he’s surprisingly reasonable.
If Lee wanted to nitpick, he had endless hooks but he didn’t.
Come to think of it, apart from snubbing that first greeting, Lee had never directly needled him.
All he’d done was call him over and ask what he thought.
In that sense, he’s not a bad person at all.
Thanks to Lee, even in that short span, Rowoon could feel himself growing.
Tiny details, sure—but those tiny differences determine the level of finish.
“We’re rolling again~!”
“Mr. Lee Rowoon, come out when you’re ready.”
Right on cue, the break ended.
Only one scene remained.
The shoot was nearing its end.
Taewoon’s ad would be a three-part series.
Rowoon was about to film the last scene of the first spot.
Keep your head in the game to the very end.
The other party might not be fond of him, but Rowoon was even starting to feel grateful.
After all, Lee Jinmyeong was a master of his craft.
There was no way there weren’t things to learn from him.
If Director Kim is the gentle type, then this one’s more strict.
Both sides had more than enough to teach.
“You’ll lie on the bed, turn off the light, close your eyes, and pretend to fall asleep.”
The last scene would close out the first concept “the space I love.” The bedroom.
Walk to the bed, lie down, yawn, settle in, right? Then just shut off the light at the end.
This part delivered the message that the place where you finally find rest is the bedroom.
In the boards and storyboard, this section was simply “walk over, lie down, turn off the light.”
But doing just that… wouldn’t it be a little lacking?
Rowoon decided to add a touch of interpretation.
Which would provoke this ominous reaction, though he had no way of knowing.
“Are you sure you like this? Are you really? Truly?”
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