Teaching the Idol to Kiss

Part One — The Contract

Da-in · Rehearsal Scene 00 — Table-Read Day

It was her thirty-seventh time playing a zombie.

Seo Da-in lay facedown on the hallway floor of an abandoned-school set. Torn school uniform, skin painted gray, blue-black veins drawn up the side of her neck. White contact lenses. At the corner of her mouth, blood made of corn syrup was slowly drying. Four hours in the makeup chair for this. The floor was cold. The first five minutes are always cold. After that it just becomes part of you. You learn that sort of thing after you’ve dropped dead thirty-seven times.

“Ready.”

The AD’s voice came from the far end of the hall. Da-in let out half a breath and held the rest. If your lungs are full, your back rises. You have to keep them half empty. You can’t tense your fingers, either. Tense fingers tremble, and anything that trembles is alive.

“Action.”

The lead actor crept down the hallway, picking his way between the fallen zombies. According to the script, the moment he stepped over Da-in, she was supposed to grab his ankle. Until then: part of the floor. Not a single breath.

He stepped over her head.

“—Ah, sorry. I stepped on her hair.”

“Cut!”

NG. Da-in didn’t breathe. Even after cut, a zombie doesn’t move. It wasn’t an industry rule. It was hers. If you get up during the reset and lie back down, the blood smears across the floor, and then the shots won’t match.

Second take, third, fourth. He tripped, he cracked up, and once he stepped right on her hand. Da-in didn’t move once. Not a finger. And on the fifth take, the instant he cleared her head, her hand shot off the floor and closed around his ankle like a trap. He screamed for real. Okay. Moving on.

“Zombie, you okay?”

The AD jogged over with a bottle of water. Only then did Da-in push herself up. Her shoulder cracked. She grinned with her gray face and her bloody mouth.

“I’m fine. I nailed mine in one, didn’t I?”

The AD burst out laughing. So did Da-in. A hundred and twenty thousand won for the day. Transportation not included. And that was the end of zombie number thirty-seven.

Two p.m. In a third-floor restroom of HBN’s annex building, Da-in scrubbed the last of the gray off the back of her ears.

The woman in the mirror was twenty-nine. Seven years out of drama school. Ten years acting. Her headshot was three years old. Her filmography was long, but the role names were short. Zombie 1. Pedestrian. Nurse 2. Zombie. Zombie (early infection). Zombie Horde C.

This afternoon’s job was different. It was a table read.

The Wednesday–Thursday miniseries Love Isn’t in the Contract. A chaebol heir and a contract-worker designer in a fake relationship. Da-in’s role: Design Team Employee 3. One line, in episode one. “The director’s here!”

One line was still a line. Bit players almost never got called to the table read. Da-in had memorized the entire script in two days. It was a habit. Even with one line, if you don’t know which scene you’re walking into and what breath you’re carrying, you can’t land it. That was her excuse, anyway. The real reason was something else, and she’d decided not to think about it.

The air changed the moment she opened the conference-room door.

At the center of a long table, two people sat facing each other. One was Yu Se-rin. A face Da-in saw every day on billboards, in subway stations, on the front page of every portal on her phone. And across from her—Da-in recognized him half a beat late.

Lee Tae-on.

Center of the boy group ZENITH. World tours, Billboard, fancams with hundreds of millions of views. The face her roommate Bong Mi-rae still kept as her lock screen two full years after announcing I’m out of the fandom. In person he was smaller than on screen, and sharper. At the cuff of his black hoodie, a single black hair tie circled his wrist.

And that face was, at this moment, terrified.

Da-in took her seat at the very end of the table, where Design Team Employees 1, 2, and 3 sat in a row.

The read fell apart in thirty minutes.

“Seo-yun-ssi. The contract. Read it. Again.”

Every line Tae-on read broke at the periods. It wasn’t that there was no emotion. It was the reading of someone who had no idea where the emotion was supposed to go. A second-grade textbook had more inflection. The writer set down her pen. Director Na Jeong-ho kept his arms crossed from start to finish.

Across from him, Yu Se-rin was flawless. Somehow, when she answered him, even his lines seemed to come alive. That made it crueler.

Episodes one, two, three. Da-in delivered her single line cleanly. “The director’s here!” No one looked at her. That was normal.

Episode four’s ending was where it blew up.

The writer read the stage directions herself.

“A rainy parking garage. Seo-yun turns to leave. Do-jun grabs her wrist and spins her back against the wall.”

SEO-YUN: You can’t do anything that isn’t in the contract.

Se-rin read it. Her voice was wet. At a table read.

SEO-YUN: So don’t. Don’t make me waver.

“Do-jun, instead of answering—” The writer paused, then read. “Kisses Seo-yun.”

Silence.

Da-in looked up. Tae-on was staring down at his script. He had no dialogue next. Only one short line after the kiss. But he didn’t read it. The fingers gripping the edge of the page had gone white. He flicked the hair tie on his wrist once with his thumb.

“…Tae-on-ssi?”

The assistant director prompted him.

“I’m sorry.”

That was all he said. He didn’t read the next line. He didn’t laugh it off. He just closed the script.

Director Na uncrossed his arms.

“Let’s take ten.”

Running into Yu Se-rin in the hallway probably wasn’t an accident. When Da-in turned the corner toward the restroom, Se-rin peeled herself off the wall as if she’d been waiting.

“Seo Da-in.”

Seven years. Yu Se-rin was Da-in’s sunbae from drama school—two years ahead, two years older, already a junior when Da-in arrived as a freshman. The one who always played the lead on the school stage. The last time Da-in had seen her up close was on the set of Da-in’s own first lead role. More precisely, the day Da-in got thrown off it.

“Sunbae. It’s been a while.”

“Still at it?”

Se-rin looked her up and down. Glanced at the back of her ear. Was there gray left?

“Zombies?”

Two crew members walking past slowed down. Da-in smiled. Smiling was easy. It was the expression she’d practiced most in ten years.

“Yep. Did one this morning. In one take.”

“I see.” The corner of Se-rin’s mouth went up—and came down again, strangely fast. “Seven years. You’d think you’d have quit by now.”

“Seven years.” Da-in tilted her head a little. “I’d think you’d have gotten plenty of use out of my role by now, sunbae.”

For one instant all expression drained from Se-rin’s face. She walked back toward the conference room without a word. Her heels clicked faster than usual.

Da-in didn’t watch her go. She pushed open the door to the emergency stairwell instead.

The stairwell was quiet. One fluorescent tube flickered.

Da-in leaned her back against the landing wall. Let out a long breath. Her hands were shaking a little. Not from the makeup. Not from being tired.

It was a good line, though.

Episode four’s ending. Those two lines Se-rin had read. Da-in had read that scene a hundred times in two days. Because she’d never get to play it, she’d read it more than anything.

She closed her eyes, no script. When she opened them, the stairwell had become a rainy underground parking garage.

“You can’t do anything that isn’t in the contract.”

Her voice dropped low. She didn’t make it wet the way Se-rin had. Da-in’s Seo-yun was a woman trying not to cry. So it was her throat that went first.

“So…”

One beat. It took exactly one beat for her eyes to redden. Da-in knew the timing precisely. A single tear ran down her left cheek. Only the left.

“Don’t. Don’t make me waver.”

Silence. The fluorescent light flickered.

Da-in wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. Then, quietly, to herself:

“Cut.”

The switch went down. Seo-yun slipped out, and only Seo Da-in was left. That was always how it went. When you hear cut, it’s over. It was the one rule Da-in had kept for ten years.

“That, just now.”

A voice from above.

Da-in looked up. Someone was leaning on the railing of the landing one floor up. Black hoodie. Black hair tie.

Lee Tae-on.

“…What take was that?”

Da-in opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again.

“The first.”

He came down the stairs. One step at a time. It was hard to believe this was the same man who’d closed his script at the table. His steps were precise. The steps of someone who lives on a stage.

He stopped one step above her. He was tall enough that one step up, he was practically the ceiling.

“What’s your name?”

“Design Team Employee 3.”

“No.” He shook his head. “Your name.”

“…Seo Da-in.”

His thumb stopped on the hair tie at his wrist. He didn’t flick it. It just stopped.

“Seo Da-in-ssi.” He came down the last step. Now they were level. One step apart. “Do that again.”

“Sorry?”

“With a partner this time.”

A laugh escaped her. The disbelieving kind.

“Tae-on-ssi. I’m a bit part. One line. And your scene partner for that is Yu Se-rin-sunbae.”

“I know.”

“Then—”

“It didn’t work with Se-rin-sunbae. Back there.”

He said it like a fact. Not an excuse, not a joke. A report.

“But just now.” He took a breath. “Just now something worked. Listening from up there. Here.” He tapped the center of his chest with a finger. “It worked.”

Da-in looked at him. On screen, that face always looked like it knew everything. The face in front of her looked like it knew nothing—and didn’t know how to hide it, either.

Ten years of professional instinct kicked in before anything else.

NG machine. But he’s got instincts.

“…Just once.”

She pushed off the wall, then set her back against it again. Seo-yun’s mark.

“Before the break’s over.”

She closed her eyes and opened them. The switch went up.

“You can’t do anything that isn’t in the contract.”

He took her wrist. As written. His hand was hot. Much hotter than she expected.

“So don’t.” Her throat tightened. Half a beat sooner than she’d meant it to. “Don’t make me waver.”

He turned her toward the wall. Concrete met her back. Cold. Hot in front, cold behind, and Da-in caught somewhere in between. His other hand braced on the wall beside her face. Thap. The sound rang right next to her ear.

One direction left. Kisses her.

Da-in spoke like a professional. Kept her voice as businesslike as she could.

“You can do it as acting. You don’t have to actually—just find the angle—”

He lowered his head.

Her sentence ended there.

He didn’t rush. The man who couldn’t read a single line at the table was handling time now. His gaze came down first. From her eyes, along the bridge of her nose, to her mouth. It stayed there for a beat. Da-in felt it settle on her lips. He hadn’t touched them, and they stung.

Ten centimeters.

His breath reached her first. Citrus, and the bitter edge of the black coffee he must have been drinking all through the read. Warm breath brushed her upper lip, slid up past it, reached the tip of her nose.

Five centimeters.

The thumb on her wrist moved. Barely. It passed over the inside of her wrist, over her pulse. Under it, her pulse was going wild. He must have felt it. His thumb stopped right there.

Da-in stopped breathing without meaning to. Lungs that had played dead thirty-seven times stopped on their own.

Three centimeters. Two.

She could see his eyelashes. Every single one. Things that weren’t in the face on screen. A tiny mole under his left eye. His lower lip, a little damp from nerves. And that lower lip, almost—

One centimeter away, Lee Tae-on stopped.

They weren’t touching. It felt like they were. The centimeter between them wasn’t air. It was heat. Her lips parted, just slightly, on their own. He saw it. His throat moved, once, hard.

He whispered from that distance. Every word nearly brushed her mouth. His breath reached her before the sound did.

“Teacher.”

“…What?”

“Breathe.”

Only then did Da-in realize she’d been holding her breath. And that he’d noticed.

It all rushed out of her. Onto his lips, one centimeter away. He closed his eyes. For a moment it was as if he were drinking it in. When he opened them again, they weren’t an NG machine’s eyes anymore.

Without pulling back, he said, very low:

“With you… I think I could actually do it.”

From beyond the stairwell door, the AD’s voice echoed.

“We’re resuming! Tae-on-ssi, where are you?”

He didn’t answer. He left the centimeter where it was, and kept looking at her.

Tae-on · The Night of the Table Read

“Tae-on-ssi! There you are.”

The stairwell door swung open and the assistant director poked his head in. Only then did Lee Tae-on step back. One centimeter became one step. That one step felt strangely far.

Seo Da-in peeled herself off the wall. Her face was red. Her expression wasn’t. Her expression was astonishingly calm. She turned to the AD and said, as if nothing had happened:

“Tae-on-ssi was asking which way the stairs go. It’s the third floor, right?”

The lie was so smooth Tae-on almost believed it himself.

“Oh—yes, yes. After you.”

The AD led the way. Tae-on followed, then looked back once. She was already gone from the landing. He could only hear footsteps going down. She’d take another route back to the conference room on purpose. They couldn’t walk in together. She knew that without having to think about it. Tae-on was only realizing it now.

For the rest of the table read, his lines got a little better.

A little. From second-grade textbook to picture book. The writer picked her pen back up. Director Na kept his arms folded, but nodded once.

The reason was simple. Every time Tae-on read a line, he looked at the far end of the table.

Design Team Employee 3 never turned her pages while she had no lines. She didn’t need to. Instead, her lips moved, very slightly. In time with every one of Se-rin’s lines. Without a sound. Anyone watching would have assumed her lips were just dry.

Tae-on watched those lips and read his lines. And it worked. He didn’t know why. Just like in the stairwell, something under his breastbone clicked into place.

The kiss direction didn’t come around again. Episode four was behind them. The final scene of episode sixteen was still blank, marked To be revised. On that page the writer glanced up at him for a moment. “There’ll be a kiss here, too. We’ll think about it when we get there.” And she moved on.

When the read ended, Tae-on stood up before anyone else. As he rose, he looked at the end of the table. She had her head down, packing her bag. She didn’t look his way once.

Pro.

For some reason, that stung.

In the underground garage, waiting for the van, he heard heels approaching.

“Tae-on-ssi.”

Yu Se-rin. Her managers stood a few steps back. Sunglasses pushed up on her head, she looked at him. The same smooth smile she’d worn all through the read was still in place.

“Where’d you go during the break? The AD was looking everywhere.”

“…The stairs.”

“The stairs.” Se-rin tilted her head. She looked past his shoulder. Across the garage, a figure was walking out of the stairwell exit instead of the elevator, heading for the bus stop. Hair neatly tied back. A worn canvas tote.

Se-rin’s smile wavered. For just a moment.

“Stairwells are nice. Great acoustics.” She slid her sunglasses down. “Run lines with me next time, too. A kiss scene isn’t something you practice alone.”

She turned. Her heels faded. Tae-on looked again at where she’d been looking. The figure at the bus stop was already gone.