WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Potter
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Genius Writer Who Will Never Fall Again ◈
Chapter 18: Broadcast (1)
──────
It was April, when flowers of every shade bloomed beautifully.
News of Sword Pact, One Lord’s upcoming broadcast was beginning to appear in online articles.
Of course, no one was terribly interested in a drama without a single famous actor. At most, people made a fuss over the newcomers filling the set soon appearing on television.
But that only made everyone more passionate.
The set had always had a good atmosphere, but with filming nearing its end, it was burning hotter than ever.
And in the middle of it all...
‘Yep. Left on read again...’
During break, Cheong-a crouched down and stared intently at the smartphone screen.
It had been a little over half a year since last autumn.
Cheong-a had known Jae-kyung for that long, yet the days they had actually met could be counted on one hand. Even then, they had always been group gatherings with barely any chance to talk privately.
Cheong-a wanted to get closer.
When had that started?
Embarrassingly, it had probably been around last autumn, when Jae-kyung had come by with coffee.
Ever since then, Jae-kyung had begun to occupy Cheong-a’s mind strangely often.
Whenever Cheong-a was absentminded, Jae-kyung came to mind. Cheong-a kept worrying for no reason. The lemonade from that day lingered in memory, too.
So Cheong-a tried sending messages, wanting to talk at least a little.
But Jae-kyung was always so indifferent that it became a matter of pride.
So far, Jae-kyung had responded in one of two ways.
First, if there was business to discuss, a short reply.
[Ryu Cheong-a: Hello, Writer! This is about Hyang-dan...]
[Writer Han Jae-kyung: Yes, you can do that.]
Second, no response.
Being left on read.
And, all things considered, that was overwhelmingly more common.
[Ryu Cheong-a: Hello, Writer! Winter is already coming to an end! Have you been careful not to catch a cold with the weather changing? We have...] (Read)
[Ryu Cheong-a: It’s spring. There are so many flowers blooming at the set lately...] (Read)
[Ryu Cheong-a: It’s cherry blossom season! If you don’t mind, maybe you could visit the set to get some fresh air...] (Read)
Sometimes, Cheong-a even felt like she was keeping a diary for an imaginary friend.
These days, Cheong-a had become used to being left on read.
At first, Cheong-a had hit the back button within one second of checking a message hundreds of times a day, afraid a reply would come while the chat window was open and reveal that Cheong-a had been waiting.
But now, knowing no reply would come anyway, Cheong-a simply left the chat open and stared blankly at it.
‘Maybe Writer Han just doesn’t answer messages much?’
Cheong-a had considered that possibility.
But the answer was no.
The proof was right in front of them.
“Heh. Writer Han sent me a coffee coupon yesterday because I’ve been working hard. Seriously, how can someone be that cool?”
“Haha, Writer Han really is a good person. I asked about something I was curious about, and Writer Han even called to explain it.”
It was a conversation between Director Byeong-gi and Jin-geon, the male lead.
Both of them seemed to contact Jae-kyung quite often.
When had it been?
Ever since Jae-kyung had fought the superior tormenting Byeong-gi, Byeong-gi had practically become a Jae-kyung devotee, boasting about Jae-kyung at every opportunity.
Jin-geon had grown close to Byeong-gi through gaming together, then one day joined Jae-kyung and Byeong-gi for drinks and became friendly with Jae-kyung as well.
Cheong-a’s expression grew even sulkier.
‘Why only me...’
Why did those people get to, while Cheong-a did not?
Cheong-a groaned over the complaint, which sounded like a line from some song, but honestly knew the reason.
Contact between a writer and an actor?
In the first place, there were not many reasons to be in touch. Depending on the atmosphere on set, it was actually something to avoid for the sake of the director’s authority.
Jin-geon had become connected to Jae-kyung because Jin-geon struggled with interpreting the character.
But Cheong-a did not even have that excuse.
Hyang-dan was too easy for Cheong-a.
‘Why? Why don’t I have any questions about my role???’
It was because Cheong-a had attended the character-building process, but there was no way Cheong-a could know that had happened before Jae-kyung’s regression.
‘Why don’t I have an excuse to contact Writer Han...?’
Frustration alone remained, breeding more worries until Cheong-a’s thoughts reached that point.
‘No, why am I waiting for Writer Han to contact me in the first place!?’
An insight was about to strike!
But there was an ancient tradition passed down since time immemorial.
Whenever a person felt their head tingle and thought they were about to realize something, they were always interrupted.
“Oh, right. I heard Writer Han has been running lately.”
Cheong-a’s ears pricked up.
“Apparently, it’s for stamina management. Writer Han said it’ll be too hot to run soon, so now is the time to go all out.”
‘Running? Where?’
The sight of Cheong-a furtively listening in and feeding that curiosity was pitiful beyond measure.
If Byeong-gi had done it, it might have looked like the beginning of some unpleasant crime. Looks really were frightening.
To anyone on set, though, Cheong-a’s anxious eavesdropping was a lovely sight.
“Probably along the Han River course.”
Hearing that, Cheong-a wondered whether there were running shoes at home.
Cheong-a should have first wondered whether it was really necessary to go that far.
But the desire to get closer had already gone beyond interest and into stubbornness, swiftly erasing that unnecessary step.
And so, Cheong-a decided to go running whenever there was no filming starting tomorrow.
‘Okay. I-I need exercise too. Actors need stamina...!’
Then Cheong-a looked at the phone screen.
...Huh.
[Ryu Cheong-a: (Photo) This is the set today! The flowers were blooming beautifully, and everyone looked happy, so I took a picture!] (Read)
[Writer Han Jae-kyung: It’s pretty.] (Read)
Cheong-a’s pupils shook as though an earthquake had struck.
‘When...?’
Cheong-a had left the screen open and drifted into other thoughts, only to receive a reply at some point.
There had not even been a notification. That meant the message had arrived while Cheong-a was inside the chat window.
Would Jae-kyung think Cheong-a had been waiting for a reply without any reason?
That was true, but what if Jae-kyung had noticed?
It was a crisis.
Cheong-a came up with a brilliant idea, at least in Cheong-a’s own opinion.
Tap tap tap!
Fingers flew like lightning.
[Ryu Cheong-a: Ah! You replied! I opened the chat because I had something to ask during filming, but I think filming started right away! Ah, the issue has been resolved, though...]
Going out of the way to make excuses.
Ryu Cheong-a had made the ugliest possible choice in an embarrassing situation.
Then Cheong-a thought:
‘But what did Writer Han mean was pretty? The flowers? The people? Or...’
Cheong-a’s face was also in the photo, though only half of it.
Thoughts jumped everywhere.
The reply alone sent dopamine surging through Cheong-a, making Cheong-a’s earlobes redden for no reason.
* * *
The spring flowers were beautiful.
Since mine was a profession that kept me indoors most of the time, seeing things that marked the passing seasons often gave me a strange sense of excitement.
I had returned to better days. I should learn to enjoy things like this, too.
But then I remembered who I was and gave up on the thought.
‘The broadcast is right around the corner. What rest?’
Sometimes.
...No, quite often lately.
Even while doing nothing, my heart would start racing on its own, and anxiety would surge up.
I knew the diagnosis better than anyone.
Panic caused by anxiety.
In my life, broadcasts had always been events that delivered expectation and despair as a set.
I would get off to a good start, then suddenly collapse, leaving me to suffer despair intensified by those expectations. That had been carved into me.
I tried reassuring myself that there was no reason for it anymore, but if that were enough to solve the problem, why would I be suffering over it?
For a while, I had trouble breathing badly enough that I could barely function day to day.
That was why I ran.
One well-known effect was that if I deliberately raised my heart rate, I could trick myself into thinking an anxiety-induced increase in my pulse was caused by exercise instead.
It really worked quite well.
Today, too, I had felt strangely close to panicking, so I went out for a run. I was too tired to have anxious thoughts.
The old folks were right.
When your body was comfortable, useless thoughts crept in.
‘Should I stop here?’
Huff!
The moment I exhaled, a messenger notification sounded.
Ping!
I picked up my phone and narrowed my eyes.
[Ryu Cheong-a: Did you eat lunch properly! Speaking of lunch, the meal truck has been really good lately! It might be hard for you to eat properly when you’re alone, so maybe you could come out for a walk sometime, haha...]
I considered not replying, but what Seong-hun hyung had said when I met him just yesterday kept bothering me.
“What? You don’t answer actors’ messages?”
“Right. There’s the issue of the director’s authority on set, and there isn’t much reason to talk privately in the first place...”
“You punk! Relationships matter too. How can you just read messages and ignore them? Honestly! I knew it from the way you were in college! You can still be friendly in private!”
I understood that much, more or less.
The problem was what came next.
“I mean, I talk to male actors. But with female actors, it can get awkward...”
“That’s discrimination! Discrimination! Especially since everyone on your set is a newcomer, right? You could really damage their self-esteem...!”
One phrase caught my attention.
Damage their self-esteem.
Hearing that, I was already dying from panic, and now I worried about that tissue-paper mental state.
That was what made trauma frightening.
Even when I was a sergeant nearing discharge, I had not been particularly careful about my behavior. Yet now I found myself worrying about every little thing.
Anyway, I replied.
‘Why are these messages so long every time?’
The effort behind them made me hesitate before I finally wrote one sentence.
[Han Jae-kyung: I’m on a diet, so I’m fine.]
I let out a deep sigh.
I decided to think positively.
‘Still, the quality was incredible.’
Episodes 1 through 10 had now been fully edited and post-processed.
And after checking them, Ryu Cheong-a was indeed Ryu Cheong-a.
There was not a single flaw in the acting.
When I thought about that, this anxiety was a risk worth enduring.
‘The teaser should come out soon. There’s about a month and a half until the broadcast.’
The first draft through Episode 16 had been finished long ago.
But conditions on set were always fluid, so revisions were inevitable. What I was doing now was proofreading and revising the later episodes.
It was not difficult work.
If anything, it was closer to trivial work requiring very little labor.
The problem, as always, was people.
Ping!
Speak of the tiger, and a message arrived.
[Reporter Choo Hyuk-jae: I’ve gathered the rough circumstances. What are you going to do? Do you have a D-day in mind?]
It was about Ryu Cheong-a’s parents.
I had steadily collected evidence through Choo Hyuk-jae.
‘They moved so exactly as I expected that it was almost baffling.’
No.
Disgusting was a better word.
Was it the price of talent?
Ryu Cheong-a had astonishingly poor luck with parents, even by the standards of me, someone with no luck with people to speak of.
Still, there would not be much of a variable.
I had prepared to act immediately if they did anything out of line.
‘The time they’ll seriously try something... probably around the third week after broadcast.’
Coincidentally, that would be when I was at my most sensitive.
‘When Ryu Cheong-a starts becoming the subject of gossip after the broadcast. That will probably be the best time for them to go around conducting their little business scheme.’
I would get rid of them.
That resolve had not changed.
But...
‘...There it is again.’
My heart beat heavily.
I furrowed my brow.
‘I’ve caught my breath. Should I run a little more?’
The moment I put my phone into my pocket...
“Ooh, Wri-ter?”
Someone spoke in an extremely, absurdly contrived voice.
“...Ms. Ryu Cheong-a?”
Ryu Cheong-a approached with remarkable awkwardness.
I had not known a person’s mouth could freeze into the shape of a smile.
“Wri-ter, do you run he-re too? What an ama-zing coincidence!”
“What? Ah, well... Ms. Ryu Cheong-a does too?”
“Yes! I came to exercise!”
What was with this person?
Cheong-a was properly dressed in workout clothes and did not look suspicious in any particular way.
‘...Am I being too self-conscious?’
Something still felt strange.
Then Ryu Cheong-a said:
“W-we met by coincidence, so... would you like to run together!?”
I was about to refuse without thinking when I remembered what Seong-hun hyung had said.
“Sometimes newcomers lose confidence and get intimidated over things like that, you know? My mother actually told me that.”
What should I do?
Then I thought, what could I do now that things had come to this?
It was ridiculous to be so picky over running together.
“...I’d already been running, so I won’t be going much farther.”
“Yes! I’m a beginner too, so I can’t run far!”
“Ah. All right.”
As I turned to prepare to run, the stare directed at me was strangely intense.
A groan slipped out.
I composed myself.
‘Let’s call it checking on that tissue-paper mental state.’
I settled into position and said:
“Then we’re running.”
“Yes!”
We ran.
And here, I learned another fact I had not known before my regression.
“W-wait a second! Hff! P-please... slow down...!”
Ryu Cheong-a had terrible stamina.
It was almost unbelievable that Cheong-a could endure overnight filming with that kind of endurance.
* * *
“I... I finished it...!”
Seeing Ryu Cheong-a lying there pathetically, melted like a slime, made me laugh.
‘Cheong-a could have given up if it was that hard.’
But Cheong-a had stubbornly finished the course.
Then Ryu Cheong-a lifted her head and smiled.
“Still, running feels so refreshing.”
“Does it?”
“Yes! It feels like oxygen is spreading right through to my capillaries. I think I’ll sleep really well tonight!”
Cheong-a said that while gulping down bottled water.
Even the satisfied “Ahh!” afterward.
Was running oneself to death really that enjoyable?
“Ah, would you like some too, Writer?”
I accepted the bottled water almost as though it had been pressed into my hands.
Cheong-a smiled as if urging me to drink.
To be honest, the situation was quite uncomfortable.
But was my discomfort a valid reason to keep this Ryu Cheong-a at a distance?
Would it make any sense to this Ryu Cheong-a, who was still nothing, if my attitude was driven by a future only I remembered?
‘No. Of course not.’
I still felt betrayed.
But this Ryu Cheong-a was not the one who betrayed me.
And even the Ryu Cheong-a of the future was not, when it came down to it, someone for whom betrayal was the right word.
Of every incident surrounding Ryu Cheong-a, not a single one had been Ryu Cheong-a’s fault.
How selfish was it to blame someone who had been caught in the desires of others and brought down by them?
The people who had done wrong were elsewhere.
The person who knew best that this was all a problem with my emotions was me.
Suddenly, an old conversation that no longer existed came to mind.
“Jae-kyung. I know I have no right to say this, but let’s stop now.”
“Stop what?”
“That. If Ryu Cheong-a had held on, you could have been in danger too. You feel that now, don’t you?”
“...”
“...I’m sorry. I put you before Ryu Cheong-a. So let’s stop here.”
I knew.
My sense of betrayal was merely another name for self-loathing.
The reason for my resentment was that the Ryu Cheong-a of that day had seen me not as someone to ask for help, but as someone who had to be protected even at the cost of being ruined.
It was while my insides were sinking that Cheong-a spoke.
“Um, aren’t you drinking the water?”
That finally brought me back to my senses.
“I will. I was just catching my breath.”
I poured the bottled water into my body, drained of moisture.
I felt like I could live again.
Though pouring water into my shrunken stomach left me rather bloated.
“Good work. Take care on your way home.”
I said that and turned away.
“Um...!”
“Yes?”
Ryu Cheong-a asked carefully.
“N-next time! Can we run together again next time!?”
“You’ll do it again? You look like it was very difficult.”
“I’ll improve if I keep doing it!”
I gave a brief laugh before answering.
There were some things I understood about my own place.
“...Do as you please. As long as it doesn’t interfere with filming, I have no objection.”
It had always been difficult to treat Ryu Cheong-a harshly.
Especially when Cheong-a smiled like that.
“R-really? Really, really?”
“Is that so surprising?”
“No!”
Ryu Cheong-a sprang to her feet, visibly brightened.
“Th-then I’ll see you next time! I’ll absolutely, absolutely tell you whenever I have an opening in my schedule!!!”
Ryu Cheong-a bowed deeply, then ran away.
Every so often, Cheong-a turned back to look at me and smile.
My heart beat uncomfortably at that sight, and only then did I realize.
‘Ah.’
One reason for my anxiety had been revealed.
‘I’m going to take something away from that person’s life now.’
I was going to take Ryu Cheong-a’s parents away from someone who still knew nothing.
Regardless of whether that act was good or evil, I would not seek Ryu Cheong-a’s consent.
And in that respect, I would think that I was no different from the people who had trapped Ryu Cheong-a.
Maybe that was what I hated in some corner of my heart.
Of course, no hesitation arose.
It was already too late for that.
Being entangled now might benefit us, but I had already seen how things ended if it went any further.
So even if it made our relationship uncomfortable, would this not be better for both of us?
Consider it a fair exchange.
I would use this one chance to secure a foothold to climb out of my bottomless abyss.
And Ryu Cheong-a would endure this one discomfort and walk a road less painful than before.
That was not a bad trade.
I left the track and went home.
Fortunately, time passed too quickly for me to sink into my worries.
Post-production work, script revisions.
And, now and then, runs joined by Ryu Cheong-a.
That was how I lived until this point.
“Good work today!”
“Yes, good work.”
“The broadcast is next week! Thinking that my face will be on television feels so strange...”
“You’ll get used to it. I’m sure.”
“...Hehe. Is that so?”
The broadcast was one week away.
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