Chapter 5
That evening, after returning home, I received the following text message.
[Actress Ha Eun-rae, congratulations! You’ve passed the audition. I’m really happy that we’ll be working together! ^^ I’ll send you the reading and filming schedules soon.
In the meantime, if you have any questions, feel free to ask me. For anything related to the schedule, you can contact the staff member who introduced himself to you earlier.]
How long had it been since a film director had treated me this kindly…?
I think this was the first time since that damn debt scandal.
With mixed feelings, I opened the wiki window that had appeared earlier.
〈Living with a Ghost〉
Genre: Romance, Comedy, Horror
Director/Screenwriter: Jegal Se-yeon
Starring: Ha Eun-rae, Seo Gyeong-bin
It had changed.
My name had been updated, shining brightly on the screen.
There was something else that had changed, too.
The filming period and production details seemed to be the same, but…
Awards: Updating…
Audience Numbers: Updating…
Awards, huh?
I swallowed nervously.
Was something changing because of my influence on this film?
And could that something… mean that a movie that originally hadn’t even been invited to a film festival would end up winning an award somewhere?
The thought made my heart feel as though it might leap right out of my chest.
Actually, I had always had a certain dissatisfaction with my film debut. Or perhaps dissatisfaction wasn’t quite the right word.
My debut had been in a highly commercial film.
It had been a box-office success, but it had also stirred up controversy for being excessively violent and featuring numerous scenes in which the actresses had to strip.
Of course, I was grateful just to have made my debut. Still, I had often wondered what might have happened if I hadn’t debuted in a film like that—
‘In this life, I’m going to make my debut with Jegal Se-yeon’s film.’
It might be an independent film, but I was even playing the lead.
My career, my life, was definitely changing.
I wanted to look up my own name on the wiki, too, but that didn’t seem possible.
[You have 0 search tickets remaining.]
…Search tickets, huh?
Judging by the countless regression-story tropes I’d encountered, this had to be a foreshadowing.
It seemed like something I’d receive as a reward after achieving a certain accomplishment—
‘I don’t know what it means yet, though.’
And right now, I had a more pressing matter to deal with.
[Actress Ha Eun-rae, I’m sending you the unrevised script for 〈Living with a Ghost〉. The director said she’ll probably revise it from page 42 onward, but I’ll send you the current version for now.]
[〈Living with a Ghost〉.pdf]
It was a message from Park Seo-woo.
I recalled the changes to Park Seo-woo’s wiki page.
‘Without any search tickets, it seems I can only see the wiki if something I’ve done causes a change to it…’
‘And even then, the change has to be pretty direct. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to see my own wiki page.’
Had my acting video really made such a big impression on Park Seo-woo that it had directly affected him?
The thought made me happy.
Of course, I still didn’t particularly like Park Seo-woo as a person, but having Director Park Seo-woo take a liking to me was an enormous deal for an actress.
I mean, a director who would go on to win an Oscar liked me.
‘And he’ll even remember me when we meet for an interview in the future.’
The thought brought a smile to my face.
I was still grinning from ear to ear when—
“Ha Eun-rae, what’s going on? Who are you texting that has you smiling so much? Let me see. Your big sister will check it for you.”
A hand playfully darted toward my phone.
It was my housemate, Yeo-reum.
For reference, this place was the twenty-one-year-old Ha Eun-rae’s refuge.
I’d worked my butt off at a barbecue restaurant to earn enough money for college tuition because my father had said he couldn’t afford to send me to university. Then, the day I’d finally saved enough, he took every last penny.
I’d completely lost it. I trashed the house, grabbed nothing but my phone, and walked out.
Then I made a call.
“…Hello?”
“…”
It was to Kang Yeo-reum, the friend I’d been close to until high school.
After she’d been accepted into a two-year fashion design program at a university in Seoul, I’d developed some inexplicable inferiority complex and stopped contacting her.
I couldn’t even get a word out, but Yeo-reum abruptly told me to come to her apartment and gave me her address.
And from that day onward, we lived together.
‘Now that I think about it, I really took advantage of her.’
Back then, I was too young to understand just how much I’d relied on Yeo-reum.
‘Then again, that wasn’t the only thing I failed to understand.’
I’d also ignored Yeo-reum when she tried to stop me from suddenly getting married after the debt scandal.
“I don’t think getting married when you’re going through such a hard time is a good idea. You should spend a little more time figuring out what kind of person Do-un is, too… And it’s not like you absolutely have to retire just because you’re getting married…”
“Do-un is a good person. I’ll introduce you to him properly next time.”
At my words, Yeo-reum pressed her lips together.
She’d probably been at a loss for words at the sight of me acting as though a few screws had come loose.
‘I’d disappeared after the debt scandal, then suddenly showed up announcing that I was getting married. No wonder she was dumbfounded.’
Of course, we’d kept in touch occasionally even after I got married, but we no longer felt like the close friends we’d once been.
We’d even had a few conflicts.
Yeo-reum had fallen into a mountain of debt after the online shopping mall she’d ambitiously launched failed, and I’d stuck my nose into her business, insisting that I’d pay it all off for her. I nearly got cut off by her for it.
“Do you think I’m a joke?”
Looking back now, there were so many ways I’d failed to be considerate.
Kang Yeo-reum. That girl had always quietly supported me whenever I was going through a hard time.
And yet, when it came to being that kind of friend to her, I’d failed.
Determined to do things differently this time, I held my phone out toward Yeo-reum, screen facing her.
“Huh…? I thought it was a guy. Well, it is a guy, but… What’s this? Did you get a script? Is someone asking you to appear in another short film?”
Kang Yeo-reum asked, sounding a little disappointed.
“This time is different. I’ll be getting paid, and we’re signing an official contract.”
Once I started earning money, I’d make sure to pay Yeo-reum her share of the rent regularly, too.
Good grief… Why was twenty-one-year-old me so shameless?
“What? So you’re really becoming an actress? I thought you weren’t interested in acting. You even turned down that talent agency’s business card when they gave it to you before.”
Ah.
A talent agency’s business card.
Right.
I remembered receiving a business card from a major agency while walking down the street around this time.
A name I could never forget.
Canna.
My first agency, and the last one I’d ever belonged to.
It was also the place that had left me with some unforgettable memories.
After I got married, my former manager, Jong-ho, had come to see me and told me something.
“Your contract was just about to expire back then… So the CEO had given Cheol-hyeon separate instructions. He wanted to stop you from entering the free-agent market.”
(Free-agent market: the period when an artist’s contract with their agency expires, allowing them to sign with another agency.)
“I only found out later. When I learned the truth, I quit Canna. Why don’t you come with me to Naru Stage, even now?”
Shockingly, my debt scandal had been a surprise event orchestrated by my own agency to get me to renew my contract.
At Yeo-reum’s words, I pulled Canna’s business card out of my wallet, where I’d carefully kept it, and crumpled it in my hand with a crackle.
“What’s wrong with you? You were so excited when they offered to cast you…”
“Cast me…?”
I looked at Yeo-reum with a sweet smile.
“Who’s going to cast me? I’m going to do the casting for my manager.”
With that, I sprang to my feet.
Hong Jong-ho.
I’m coming to get you, you bastard.
