Chapter 16
I don't usually bother checking the playbill when I come to see a play.
This time, though, I picked one up and looked through it.
[Dreams Come True]
Along with that painfully clichéd title, there was a brief introduction to the play and a bit of bragging about it.
There were also brief introductions to the actors.
“Hmm.”
No matter where I looked, I couldn't find the name “Lee Da-young.”
Unless my eyesight was already going, I was sure I’d read the name Lee Da-young correctly.
This was the only play scheduled for this time slot.
‘Or maybe she’s working part-time or something?’
I was thinking that, just in case, when I saw someone enter the staff-only waiting room.
I quickly stopped someone and asked. They told me part-timers went to the staff waiting room, while performers went to the cast’s waiting room.
So Lee Da-young had to be one of the performers.
“The play starts in ten minutes.”
While I was still confused, a voice announced that it was almost time for the play.
“Let’s go in.”
“……Do we really have to watch the play?”
“Hm? Yeah.”
“Yes, Team Leader-Manager.”
Maybe she hadn't slept enough.
Eun Hee-ju didn't look very well.
“If you’re too tired, you can sleep during the play. We can always come again next time.”
“Come again next time……”
Hee-ju’s expression grew complicated.
She had the face of a little child who couldn’t tell whether something was good or bad.
“The seats are pretty soft, too. Heh heh. If it comes to it, you can borrow my shoulder.”
“……!”
I said it jokingly and started looking for our seats, when something bumped into my shoulder with a thud.
Wondering what it was, I looked beside me and saw Hee-ju repeatedly knocking her head against my shoulder.
“If you’re trying to break my shoulder—”
“Ah. I’m sorry.”
“E6, E7. Here we are.”
Even after we sat down, Hee-ju leaned against my shoulder like a magnet.
What was this?
Did I have honey on my shoulder or something?
“I’m sorry, Team Leader-Manager. I did wake up, but I’m still not fully awake, so my head just feels heavy.”
You woke up, but you’re not fully awake?
What country’s wordplay was that supposed to be?
“No, what matters now is—”
I shook my head and looked over the playbill again.
Looking closely at the back, I spotted a group photo.
It wasn’t like searching for a needle in a desert, but when I leaned in as close as I could, I could make out a woman in the corner who looked like Lee Da-young.
“Is she an extra?”
Thump-thump.
“You really want to break my shoulder, don’t you?”
“Ah. I thought it might help me wake up.”
Jeez.
I grabbed Hee-ju, who kept pounding away with her head like a hammer, and pulled her firmly against my side.
“Stay still like this. You look weird to other people. Don’t forget you’re an idol trainee. You’re practically guaranteed to debut—you’re my very first treasure. Got it?”
“Ah. Yes.”
Only then did Eun Hee-ju settle down.
What on earth had she been trying to do?
I kind of wanted to open up this four-dimensional weirdo idol’s head and take a look inside.
[I’d like to open that girl’s head and show it to you at least once, Master.]
What kind of terrifying thing are you saying?
Whatever.
Hee-ju was just a poor, innocent kid who didn’t know anything.
It wasn’t like I was holding off on sleeping with her for no reason.
A little later, the play began.
The audience filled about a third of the seats.
‘There are fewer people than I expected.’
Dramas always show theater people as poor or on the verge of going under, so lots of people mistakenly think theater isn’t popular.
But plays in Daehak-ro were fairly popular.
After all, there are only a few places in Korea where you can watch plays, and Daehak-ro is the biggest, with performances on a regular schedule.
‘Some really popular plays sell out if you don’t book quickly.’
The moment you saw one of those plays, you could understand why it was popular.
The same went for unpopular plays.
“We can’t give up here.”
“Yeah! Dreams come true someday!”
The acting was fucking awful……
No, wait.
They were still working hard, so it felt a little harsh to insult them.
I should just see when Lee Da-young appeared.
Maybe this level was still watchable for someone who’d never seen a play before.
“Are you having fun?”
“Yes. It’s fun.”
That was when it happened.
I’m not even exaggerating—Lee Da-young appeared as an extra for maybe five percent of the entire play, if that.
At the same time, Eun Hee-ju said,
“It’s not fun anymore.”
Sorry, but instead of answering Hee-ju, I checked Lee Da-young again.
[Lee Da-young, S+]
I definitely hadn’t mistaken her.
Lee Da-young didn’t quite measure up to SS-grade Hee-ju, but she had far greater talent than even the top idol trainees who were already making a name for themselves.
Then why the hell……
“What?”
Wearing a ridiculous wig like that.
“There’s no way dreams like that come true.”
Why was she taking a B-grade role and delivering a B-grade performance?
Her acting itself wasn’t especially impressive, to be honest, but it was decent.
But decent wasn’t good enough.
We’d paid money to come here and be moved.
An actor—
Especially in a play, where you have to convey emotions directly to an audience right in front of you, you can’t act like that.
This wasn’t a drama shoot where they could just edit things afterward.
[Jung Jae-ik, C+]
[Im Byeong-jin, B]
[Lee Da-young, S+]
Was I imagining it, or did she seem to be at the same level as the other people in the play?
“Hee-ju. What do you think of that person over there?”
“You mean that woman in the corner with the slanted eyes who’s hard to look at?”
“Huh?”
That was a little harsh, wasn’t it?
“I don’t think she’s very good. She looks like Jo Yu-na.”
“……”
Good heavens.
Saying someone looked like Jo Yu-na—
That was the worst possible description Hee-ju could give.
Did that mean she was that bad?
“If Team Leader-Manager brought me here to show me something like that, I think I could just watch MiTube by myself and manage.”
[That woman is definitely not it.]
[It sounds like she’s saying that woman is absolutely not worth bringing along, Master.]
“Uh. Hmm.”
Maybe not.
Had I really been mistaken?
But then—
[I’m sorry, but the information I show you isn’t false. If someone is marked with that grade, they definitely have the talent to match.]
Nobel was making a forceful case, almost as if she were keeping Hee-ju in check.
She was right.
It wasn’t that I was disregarding Hee-ju’s opinion.
Still, the voice I needed to listen to more closely was Nobel’s.
“I’ll have to talk to her after the play ends.”
As I murmured that, Hee-ju stared blankly at me and asked,
“Team Leader-Manager.”
“Hm?”
“What’s your goal, Team Leader-Manager?”
“I want the idols I raise to become the best in the world, and then I’ll become the world’s best team leader…… or CEO, I guess. You’re one of them, too.”
“Can’t you do it with just one person?”
Wondering what she was talking about, I looked over at her.
“I was just curious.”
“There’s no reason one person couldn’t do it. If that one person could sing incredibly well, act well, shine on variety shows, and be incredibly popular. There are people who debut solo and do really well, after all. If they sold over two million albums in their first week and made fifty billion won a year just from advertising revenue. But no one’s managed all that alone yet.”
“I see.”
Hee-ju murmured in a meaningful voice, as if she’d just realized something.
“So if I manage that, I can have it all to myself.”
“Hm? What did you say?”
The play was too loud, so I couldn’t hear what Hee-ju had said.
Ugh, those people couldn’t act, but they sure could shout.
It was just noise.
“The play’s pretty low quality.”
“Maybe it’s because there’s a woman who looks like Jo Yu-na.”
“Have you been bullied by that woman named Lee Da-young too?”
“No.”
Hee-ju shook her head.
“It’s the opposite. I feel like I might bully her.”
“Ah-ha.”
Because she looked like Jo Yu-na, Hee-ju might take revenge on this woman, too.
Was that what she meant?
What a cute girl.
“Don’t worry too much. Maybe she looks like Jo Yu-na from far away, but they’re not that similar. And how much could you bully her, anyway? Heh heh.”
Even if Hee-ju tried to bully someone, all she’d do was stare at them with those innocent eyes.
[I see……]
Clap clap—
Oh.
The play had been so boring that it was already over after I’d exchanged just a few words with Hee-ju.
Honestly, Lee Da-young’s presence had been nonexistent.
If I hadn’t been paying close attention, I might not even have realized she was in the play.
“Hee-ju. Go sit over there and rest for a bit.”
“……Yes.”
I had Hee-ju sit in the theater lounge and hurried to the cast’s waiting room.
[No Entry Except for Authorized Personnel]
It was written there in big, bold letters, but—
I ignored it and went right in.
“Good work.”
“Good work!”
Inside, several actors were greeting people who seemed to be their seniors.
Lee Da-young, meanwhile, wasn’t greeting anyone or even making eye contact. She was quietly clearing away the props in a corner.
But her expression was incredible.
She looked far more alive than she had during the play.
And even more incredible—
“Shouldn’t you practice more? Or revise the dialogue? Don’t you need to change things up? This is a complete fucking mess right now.”
Good heavens.
These days, people were so sensitive to everything that they wouldn’t even date, let alone get married. And yet here was someone who could be that blunt.
I almost clapped without thinking.
“……”
The place was so quiet it had turned cold, so I couldn’t.
“Lee Da-young again?”
“Cut it out.”
“You know this is the best we can do. How much more do you expect from us? If you don’t like it, why don’t you leave the troupe and do a one-woman show on the street? You can’t even do that, so why do you keep muttering to yourself and ruining the only decent atmosphere we have here?”
“We know we’re not good. But this is the best we can do, so what do you expect? Are we some S-rank theater troupe? Is this an S-rank play? And you think your acting is any good?”
An age as sensitive as this one—
Also meant everyone was liable to burst if someone so much as jabbed them with a pin.
This clearly wasn’t the first or second time it had happened.
“Da-young, hurry up and apologize. You love theater, don’t you? Are you going to quit here?”
Wow.
Honestly, I thought that was even crueler.
She’d just been insulted from every direction,
and then some girl beside her—someone she was almost too embarrassed to call a friend—was pressuring her to apologize.
‘What a sly fox.’
That’s why, fuck, all women should just get fucked……
[Don’t generalize.]
Ahem!
But the real shock, the shock after that, wasn’t even the worst of it.
“Fuck, you bunch of self-deluded, fucking useless idiots. Your skills are shit, but you’ve mastered jerking yourselves off and can’t even see how bad you are. I can’t work with people like you anymore. Go on living your whole fucking lives telling yourselves your pathetic skills are fine, then get old and go work in a factory.”
Seriously, who put two bottles of soda into the makgeolli?
It’s got that earthy flavor, but the carbonation’s popping like crazy.
“You fucking bitch, have you lost your mind?!”
A hotheaded-looking man, stung so badly by her colorful stream of curses he might as well have been punched through the chest, suddenly raised his hand.
“Fuck you. Go ahead and hit me!”
Lee Da-young saw that and boldly thrust her face toward him.
She was pretty crazy herself.
Still, an actor’s face was their most precious asset.
I hurried forward and grabbed the man by the wrist.
“……?”
“Who are you? Don’t you know this area is off-limits to anyone but staff?”
I answered,
“I am staff.”
Then I pointed at Lee Da-young and said,
“I’m the team leader who’s going to be her manager.”