Proof of Qualification

"Hello. I'm Doctor Kevin."

"Hello."

Steadying himself after being startled by her presence, Jeong Sin Ho delivered the introduction he had prepared.

Still wearing that faint smile, she bowed her head politely in greeting.

"You're here because of depression, Wendy. Do you know that?"

"I'm not really sure what you mean. There's nothing wrong with me."

"Nothing wrong? You're this thin. That's anorexia caused by depression."

"I just wanted to be prettier than the other girls. There's no other problem."

The girl who looked so quiet was unexpectedly answering back at every turn, and what she said was frustratingly logical.

Caught off guard, he tried to refute her.

"No. You have Masked Depression. That means a form of depression that doesn't show on the surface."

"How can you be so certain? I function perfectly well. I don't cry, and I don't spend my days feeling down."

"I'm a professional. Even if you hide it, I can see it. You pretend your emotions don't fluctuate, but when you're alone, you're depressed and have no motivation for anything, don't you? Let's work through this together. If you want to recover quickly, you need to be more honest."

"I am being honest. Right now, it feels like you're trying to fit me into a diagnosis you've already decided on."

Rustle—

The audience reacted.

A child with Dependent Personality Disorder and depression.

Given only that information, everyone had expected Wendy to be timid and fragile.

Instead, she was calm, logical, and composed.

The "elite psychiatrist" Jeong Sin Ho had prepared had already collapsed.

He was no longer playing a brilliant doctor. He had become a flustered physician whose weak points were being exposed by his patient.

"That's not true! You're reacting defensively because you don't want people discovering your problems. Don't you understand that?"

"No matter what I say, you're going to interpret it however you've already decided to. I don't think that's a conversation. I'd like to refuse any further discussion."

"No, you—"

Jeong Sin Ho's face reddened.

And Wendy truly fell silent.

The scene continued with Wendy refusing to speak and Jeong Sin Ho fumbling awkwardly, desperately trying to keep the conversation alive.

Five minutes later, it was over.

"That's enough."

"Wait, isn't there something wrong with this? How am I supposed to act when my scene partner won't respond?"

"Actress Seol Su Yeon didn't stop responding. Wendy did."

"You said she has Dependent Personality Disorder. A kid like that wouldn't constantly argue back. It doesn't fit the character."

At that, Su Yeon quietly spoke.

"Having a particular diagnosis doesn't mean a patient behaves exactly like the textbook description. Wendy is frightened because she's in an unfamiliar environment. She wants to go home as quickly as possible. She wants to appear obedient because she wants to be seen as a good child, but I think she's still defensive enough to express refusal."

There was a quiet authority in her explanation.

It sounded trustworthy.

"Should we ask everyone here whether Wendy's silence felt forced?"

Jeong Sin Ho looked around at his fellow actors as if seeking support.

When he saw that none of them were on his side, he froze.

"Stop making excuses. Anyone can see you weren't prepared. In an improvisational scene, even a partner refusing to talk is part of the acting. From where I was sitting, that actress's performance was far more convincing than yours."

The speaker was Kim Heung Su, one of July's veteran actors.

Grinding his teeth, Jeong Sin Ho stormed out.

A tense silence settled over the theater.

 Was she sick during the Internal competition? That's an impressive level of acting.

And this is improvisation. She responds to everything without hesitation...

More than anything... she genuinely feels like a patient.

Her tone was calm.

She smiled constantly.

Everything about her outward expression remained within the range of normal behavior.

Yet beneath it spread a pale emptiness.

Something fragile, something that looked as though it might extinguish at any moment, kept drawing the eye.

"Next, Yoon Jung Gun."

Yoon Jung Gun stepped onto the stage.

He was one of the actors who had failed to secure a role in City Men and Women alongside Chu Se Mi.

A large man with the appearance of a gentle bear, he had prepared a warm and humane version of the Doctor.

"Wendy. Your doctor knows everything."

"Knows what?"

"When I was little, I loved my mother very much too. I hated seeing my father holding her hand."

"Oh... really? Do you have siblings, Doctor?"

"I do. An older brother. Whenever my mother praised him, I got terribly jealous."

"Wow. Then what happened? Out of your father, your brother, and you, who did your mother love most?"

"Hmm... I think it was my brother. He was very smart. I studied like crazy trying to beat him and eventually became a doctor. But in the end, he became a professor at an even better university."

"Doctor... that's so sad..."

"Yeah... Back then, I..."

"...Huh?"

Only after talking endlessly in response to her prompts did Yoon Jung Gun realize what had happened.

He wasn't conducting a counseling session.

He was receiving one.

Encouraged by Wendy's sympathetic reactions, the "good child" kept drawing his wounds out of him.

And Wendy...

She was kind.

She was considerate.

But she had never opened her own heart.

Failure.

Leading his massive frame back to his seat, Yoon Jung Gun looked utterly dejected.

The next actor.

And the one after that.

Only after four performances had finished did the audience finally understand what Su Yeon was doing.

And they were stunned.

Mirroring.

The act of copying another person's behavior.

But Su Yeon wasn't mirroring behavior.

She was mirroring personalities.

With analytical doctors, she became analytical.

With empathetic doctors, she responded with empathy. 𝕗𝕣𝐞𝐞𝘄𝐞𝚋𝚗𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝚌𝕠𝚖

With doctors who tried to cheer her up, she rewarded them with brighter smiles.

With doctors who maintained professional distance, she became a patient who kept her distance as well.

The character changed slightly with every opponent.

Yet she never stepped outside the broad framework of Wendy.

A child who had tried too hard to be the good daughter her mother wanted, only to fall into depression.

Within that framework, she was portraying countless different versions of Wendy.

Maybe the saying is true. If you're standing among geniuses... then you're probably a genius too.

The looks in the July members' eyes changed.

The hasty judgments disappeared.

They were now looking at her as though they had discovered another budding genius.

Yu Myeong noticed the shift.

Beside his ear, Miho whispered.

{They're not going to look down on her anymore, right?}

Probably not.

{You know, when I look at you sometimes, you're actually pretty clever. Not as clever as me, of course. Kyahaha.}

There had been one more reason Yu Myeong had planned this open audition.

Beyond boosting morale within July.

Beyond giving Su Yeon a chance to practice.

There was something else.

What gives her the right to stand among them?

That was the look she had felt every day.

When Su Yeon confessed her past, one sentence she had casually let slip had remained lodged in his mind.

"What gives you the right to be there?"

She had been walking into those rehearsal rooms under that gaze the entire time.

Then let her prove she belonged.

Yu Myeong's final objective had been simple.

To make it impossible for the July members to dismiss Su Yeon.

And seeing the way everyone looked at her now, he knew he had succeeded.

 The final applicant was Chu Se Mi.

Cold sweat trickled down her back after witnessing Su Yeon's performance.

Still, there was one advantage.

At least she knew what she was facing.

Without hesitation, she discarded the version she had originally prepared and pulled out a completely different one.

"Hello. I'm Chu Se Mi, applying for Team Triple. The moment you recruit me, your combat power is going to skyrocket. Team Triple will become Team Four Card."

Wearing a doctor's coat borrowed from the costume department, she winked as she introduced herself.

She had swallowed her pride and prepared properly.

That alone deserved extra points.

"We'll begin."

Bzz—

The lights came up.

Se Mi walked over to Su Yeon and flashed a suspicious smile.

Then she delivered a shocking opening line.

"Hello, Wendy. Did you know your mother hates you?"

Everyone was stunned.

What kind of insane doctor would say something like that?

Who would directly wound a patient from the very first sentence?

But her next line was even worse.

"That's why they left only you here. Your mother, your father, John, and Michael all wanted to live together without you."

"That's not true!!!"

For the first time, Wendy exploded.

The girl who had remained calm through four auditions suddenly revealed raw emotion.

"Wendy is a good child! She's a good older sister who takes care of John and Michael! She doesn't lie, and she doesn't refuse food! There's no way Mom hates me!"

Her deepest wound had been torn open before she could defend it.

She shook her head violently.

No.

No.

Her entire body trembled with rejection.

But the fiercer the denial, the closer it sounded to confirmation.

This girl really...

Chu Se Mi tensed.

She had thought Su Yeon was simply intelligent after seeing how she adjusted to each actor.

Now she realized her emotional immersion was even more frightening.

Once she began expressing emotion, darkness seemed to pour from her.

As though she were sinking into her own world, she filled the stage completely.

Determined not to be overwhelmed, Se Mi deliberately stepped forward.

No matter what, she was the one who had dragged Wendy this far.

She couldn't afford to lose from such an advantageous position.

"Ah. So Wendy's value comes from being a good child? Your mother wouldn't love a Wendy who wasn't good, would she?"

"N... no."

"Then of course she doesn't love you. Deep down, you already know the truth, don't you? You're not actually a good child."

"..."

"And yet you're still lying. What a bad child. No wonder your mother hates—"

"Ugh..."

Tears began streaming down Wendy's face.

As though she knew it was true.

As though she knew she had no way to refute it.

She looked like the saddest child in the world.

"That's right... Wendy is a bad child... Mom really didn't love Wendy... I tried... I tried so hard..."

Uh...

A child crying as though her world had collapsed.

For a moment, Chu Se Mi wanted to comfort her.

The immersion she had built into her cruel, merciless Doctor cracked.

She became Chu Se Mi again.

Her expression stiffened with defeat.

She had broken character on stage.

She had lost.

"That's enough. Thank you for your hard work."

And with that, her audition ended.

Just before she stepped off the stage with a bitter smile, Yu Myeong spoke.

"Actress Chu Se Mi, I'd like to ask one question."

"Yes."

"You were quite far outside the bounds of what we'd normally consider a doctor. Why did you choose that approach?"

"Because it looked like Seol Su Yeon was using mirroring."

"And?"

"I deliberately created a character that would be difficult to mirror. Wendy is fundamentally a good child. I didn't think she could imitate malice without a reason."

"...So after watching Su Yeon's performance, you changed your character concept?"

"Yes."

"I see. Thank you."

Yu Myeong nodded.

In the end, the person who passed the audition that day was Chu Se Mi.

Her quick thinking became a topic of conversation.

But the biggest topic by far was Seol Su Yeon's acting.

After that day, the phrase birds of a feather spread through July like an unquestionable truth.

And the way people looked at Su Yeon changed completely.

 Chu Se Mi joined rehearsals.

"Hello."

"Welcome. Let's work well together over the next few months."

"Thank you for giving me this opportunity."

"No, we're the ones who should be grateful to work with such a good actor."

Yu Myeong.

Ryu Shin.

Seol Su Yeon.

From the outside, they looked like a gathering of geniuses who naturally gravitated toward one another.

Yet when they greeted her, they were cheerful and kind.

They seem like good kids...

She thought she might get along with them surprisingly well.

That illusion shattered within days.

At least if "getting along comfortably" included physical comfort.

What is this practice schedule...?

The intensity was absurd.

They attacked every session at full throttle without rest.

They always said, "Feel free to pace yourself if you're tired."

But the pride of a sixth year actor wouldn't allow that.

Drenched in sweat, she barely managed to keep up.

By the end of rehearsal, she felt like she might throw up for the first time in years.

So this wasn't a gathering of geniuses.

It was a gathering of practice addicts.

Physical conditioning.

Body balance.

Mime work, monologues, expressive training, compositions.

The most basic fundamentals imaginable.

Yet they never skipped any of them.

The only difference was that they compressed everything into impossibly intense sessions.

Watching them, she found herself reflecting.

She hadn't practiced fundamentals this intensively since she was a beginner.

Her rehearsal hours had always been long, but she had approached the basics with an attitude of, I already know all this.

An actor who practiced like that could never catch people like these.

Not actors who possessed that level of talent and still worked this hard.

Her resolve changed.

She gritted her teeth and threw herself into training.

Then, on the evening of the third rehearsal day, while they were eating dinner together—

Su Yeon finished her meal, sipped her tea, looked directly at Yu Myeong, and dropped a bomb.

"We need to break up."

W... what?

Chu Se Mi nearly choked on her water.

Those two looked close, sure, but they were actually that kind of relationship?

And why would she announce a breakup here of all places?

"I can't take it anymore. Not for another second. I feel like I'm going to get indigestion just eating with you."

"Haah... Why are you doing this again? Please."

"At this point... we're clearly not right for each other..."

Yu Myeong sounded irritated.

A single tear gathered in Su Yeon's exhausted eyes.

Panicked, Se Mi glanced past her toward Ryu Shin.

Surely he looked just as shocked as she did.

But—

Ryu Shin suddenly grabbed Su Yeon's wrist.

Gasp—

"Then start seeing me instead."