"Idols are, by default, pretty good at acting."

"Huh?"

"Think about it. On stage, you’re always acting out expressions to match the song’s concept."

"That’s true."

I nodded along in agreement with Jaei as she launched into her lecture with passion.

Even for Iam, one of the things we cared about most when preparing a stage was making expressions that matched the choreography.

"But when you actually look at idols who show up in dramas, they can’t act. Do you know why?"

"Hm···I got it right away."

I could immediately catch what Jaei was trying to say.

"Complacency···like Zhao Kuo, who had mastered discussing military strategy on paper, but because he got complacent on the real battlefield, he couldn’t show his true skill."

"What? What nonsense are you talking about?"

"No?"

"No."

Jaei shrugged once like my answer was ridiculous, then explained why idols—who act every day—end up doing bad acting on drama sets.

"An idol’s acting is often something dressed up for instant impact. On a stage that’s about three minutes, the time each member gets a solo camera shot is only a few seconds at best."

"Right."

"So to grab the eyes of the people watching the stage in that short time, you get used to expressing emotions in an exaggerated way."

"Hoh."

Jaei’s explanation really did sound plausible.

Even for me, when the solo shot hit on stage, I’d smile brighter than usual or give a little wink—exaggerated expressions and motions like that.

"On the other hand, drama acting isn’t about expressing things that dramatically. Even when you’re not speaking, you have to express things delicately through tiny adjustments in your gaze and your breathing."

Jaei added that idols have the habit of trying to grab attention too deeply ingrained, so they struggle a lot to follow the tempo of drama acting.

"So instead of being dramatic, I have to be natural?"

"Yes! Exactly!"

After finishing that, Jaei immediately showed a simple piece of acting.

Out of the scenes in the script I brought, Jaei performed one on the spot, and just watching it made it obvious why Jaei had confidently called herself a veteran when it came to acting.

"With this much, I still kept basic manners, didn’t I?"

Jaei’s expression as she delivered the male lead’s line looked like there was truly someone right in front of her.

A cold gaze that showed interest in the other person had already cooled off, and Jaei’s eyes weren’t looking straight ahead, but slightly to the side.

"I’m leaving first. You can meet some new guy you like, for all I care."

At the same time, the flat, almost emotionless voice that came out of Jaei’s mouth wasn’t even that loud, but it was so crisp I was startled as the listener.

And that wasn’t all—since she wasn’t holding the script, her left hand was free, and she made a motion like she was tapping a table.

When all of Jaei’s movements and her eye handling combined, it genuinely felt like a scene from TV.

"So? How was it?"

"Excellent."

"What is that. Don’t you have something more detailed?"

"Like, it’s not just saying the lines—you have to think about movement too, and you have to use a different kind of projection than when you sing?"

"Huh···how did you know?"

"Because you did it."

I burned Jaei’s acting into my eyes—eye handling, hand motions, even breathing.

The most impressive part, especially, was the projection she used to deliver lines.

'It’s similar to singing projection, but it’s different.'

When you sing, what matters is pushing out sound clearly and steadily, but just now, Jaei had let pronunciation loosen slightly, and depending on the situation, she kept changing breathing while delivering the lines.

In contrast to how, on stage, we try to deliver the prettiest possible voice to fans, I could feel that she was aiming for natural sound.

"I’m leaving first. You can meet some new guy you like, for all I care."

"W-what!"

"How was it, was it okay?"

I copied the acting I’d just seen from Jaei exactly as-is.

Then Jaei stared at me with horrified eyes.

"You stole it again! Give it back! Why do you keep stealing only my acting!"

Soon, like she couldn’t believe it, she started smacking my forearms with both hands, throwing a tantrum and demanding I return her acting, and I had to struggle for a long while to calm her down.

***

Phew.

Jo Changsu, holding a cigarette in his mouth like he was chewing gum and blowing smoke out, was a drama PD from UBS, and right now his mood was extremely foul.

Maybe because of that?

It was practically written on his face—my mood is foul—so even the other staff on set didn’t want to approach him, and Changsu could feel that too.

But—

"···PD, Writer Kim Hyunsuk has arrived."

Someone had to do that job, and it usually fell on the most junior person.

In front of Changsu, the youngest staff member stood there, tense and fidgeting, carefully reporting that Writer Kim Hyunsuk had arrived on set.

The moment the name Kim Hyunsuk came out of that junior’s mouth, Changsu’s forehead veins practically popped like a comic, and heat surged up.

He felt like he could yell, Is that my problem? but what was the point of snapping at a junior who’d obviously been shoved forward by seniors? So he just swallowed it down.

"Tsk."

Tap tap.

Changsu took one long drag from the cigarette in his mouth, flicked the ash off with a finger, tossed it into the trash, then threw a question at the junior who was still tense.

"Junior···do you think this is right?"

"Huh?"

"When they asked for more budget, that person was flailing and whining that it was hard. And this time, they went and donated twenty million won."

"Th-that is···."

Just thinking about it made him furious.

With twenty million won, the range of choices for what you could do on set got much wider.

He could have used a broader range of bit-part actors, and instead of bowing and scraping for sponsored locations, he could have rented locations proudly.

But even if they couldn’t support them with that amount, they went and donated it somewhere else—how could he, as the PD in charge of directing, not be angry? It would be weird not to be.

Still—

[The UBS Monday-Tuesday drama ‘I Kiss Tomorrow You’ team makes a big donation ahead of its first broadcast!]

A drama that hadn’t even aired yet got a few articles out with a good meaning, so even Changsu could understand that much.

Either way, it was publicity, so he could let it go with a good-is-good mindset.

But the real big problem came after that.

"And what they brought back as the price of that twenty million won donation is stuffing in a female idol! Does that make sense?"

"It doesn’t, right?"

"It’s bad enough that you’d normally have to get paid to cram someone in—this time they paid money and brought her in!"

An idol.

For Changsu, it was impossible to accept that what they got in exchange for that massive amount wasn’t a famous actor, but a special appearance by a single idol.

For the past few years, idols appearing in dramas had become frequent.

It was because a few dramas that cast idols had gotten good results among younger viewers, so at some point, everyone started shoving idols into dramas one by one.

'Even a kid knows that there are way more failed projects.'

By now, not only industry people but the public also knew that there were far more productions that failed after casting idols just based on looks and popularity.

"If a drama has an idol, I skip it."

⤷For real, my favorite showed up so I forced myself to watch and it was awful

⤷Just do what you’re good at

⤷The idol is a problem, but the writer and PD who slap together a script because an idol is in it are also a problem

⤷There are ones who are good, but there are more who aren’t

⤷If you can’t act, do a bit part, why are you doing lead/support roles, I don’t get it

It had gotten so bad that online you could constantly see posts saying if an idol shows up in a drama, they skip it.

Because of that, agencies were now in a situation where they would even invest money, begging for their idols to be used.

But instead of investing, they paid money to cast an idol—wasn’t that completely wrong?

"Maybe the Director had no choice···?"

"Tsk."

The youngest staff member desperately made excuses to calm Changsu down.

And that worked to some extent.

'Still, this is all because of Writer Kim Hyunsuk.'

Did the Director who made the insane decision to pay money to bring in an idol not know this reality?

No.

They knew it better than anyone, and even so, they made the choice because they had no alternative.

"I want you to leave casting authority entirely to me."

Normally, casting the actors who appear in a production is generally done by the PD and the writer discussing it together.

But sometimes, casting authority tilted to one side—if the writer was a rookie, the PD usually made casting decisions, and if the writer was a veteran, authority tilted toward the writer.

And the writer of this I Kiss Tomorrow You was a veteran among veterans.

Kim Hyunsuk.

Korea’s top drama writer, an undefeated myth in the drama world, who had never once failed—not a single time—from the debut work through every work up to now, turning everything into a hit.

Writer Kim Hyunsuk requested that casting be left entirely to Writer Kim Hyunsuk, and that ridiculous suggestion—

"Of course! Writer Kim."

UBS’s drama department accepted it without hesitation.

With a writer on Kim Hyunsuk’s level, networks fought each other to host that writer just to get the script, so they could give something like casting authority as much as they wanted.

And Writer Kim Hyunsuk was famous for having a special eye for actors.

From already-famous actors, all the way to unknown actors who weren’t recognized yet.

People even said that whoever Kim Hyunsuk chose would definitely blow up, because of how famous Kim Hyunsuk was for finding the actor who suited the work best.

So actors accepted roles when Kim Hyunsuk called without even asking questions, and PDs also welcomed directing Kim Hyunsuk’s work, happy they didn’t have to worry about casting.

But in this production, the problem was that from the start, Kim Hyunsuk was unusually fixated on one specific idol.

"For the female lead role that appears in Episode 2, I absolutely want it to be Miss Lee Sion from Iam."

"What? Uh···Writer, Lee Sion isn’t an actor."

"Lee Sion."

"No, if you tell us other actors, we’ll do whatever we can—"

"Lee Sion."

"···."

"Lee Sion."

"I didn’t even say anything···."

Because the nature of this production required multiple female leads, it was important to choose actors that matched each concept, and among them, for the prettiest version of the female lead that appears once every two episodes, Kim Hyunsuk insisted on Lee Sion.

In the end, UBS’s drama Director, unable to beat that insistence, directly gave orders, participated in the charity auction content KJ Entertainment held this time, and personally snagged Lee Sion.

"Haah···let’s go. Writer will be waiting."

"Yes!"

The Director had gone along with it, so what could a mere PD like Changsu do?

If it was unavoidable anyway, then from now on, what he had to do was clean it up as much as possible.

"Writer, you’re here?"

"Yeah, Jo PD, sorry I couldn’t come to the first shoot."

"No, it’s fine. You’re busy, and I’m grateful you came at all. Guys, what are you doing? Set up the chair and the sunshade."

"Oh, you don’t have to go that far. I just came to take a quick look."

"What if your skin burns, Writer."

"The only person who thinks of me is Jo PD."

Jo Changsu greeted Writer Kim Hyunsuk so warmly it was hard to believe he’d been grumbling just a moment ago.

While the two chatted for a while about little things, a van drove into the set.

Screeeech.

It was a different vehicle than the vans for the lead actors everyone usually saw on set, so everyone’s gaze snapped over there, and the van stopped at a suitable distance from the set.

And then—

Thud.

The moment the door opened, a blonde woman stepped out of the car.

"She’s here."

Lee Sion had arrived.

'She really is different.'

Watching Writer Kim Hyunsuk stop mid-conversation and immediately head straight for Lee Sion like she was that happy to see her, Changsu thought to himself.

Changsu also knew about Lee Sion.

Lee Sion had been so active lately that it would be strange if there was anyone in Korea who didn’t know her, so Changsu had no choice but to see Lee Sion naturally through broadcasts or YouTube.

So Changsu already thought Lee Sion’s looks weren’t lacking even compared to actors, but—

'That was me underestimating her.'

Seeing Lee Sion in person, he realized his own thoughts had actually been evaluating her far too low.

As a drama PD at a broadcast network, Changsu had met everyone from top actresses at the height of success, to actresses whose recognition was still lacking but whose looks alone were strong enough to compare to top stars.

But Lee Sion’s looks, greeting Writer Kim Hyunsuk happily right in front of him, weren’t dimmer than theirs—if anything, they were shining more.

Especially—

"Wow···I’ve never seen someone who looks this good with blonde hair."

Just like the man who suddenly appeared beside Changsu said, it was even more impressive because he’d never seen anyone who suited such an eye-catching dye color this well.

"It’s not even filming yet, why are you out already, Actor Yoo?"

"I came out early to look over a place to rehearse too, and I heard Writer Kim was here, so I came out to say hello."

It wasn’t only Changsu who felt Lee Sion was ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) extraordinary—Yoo Jinseok, who played the male lead in this drama, also had eyes fixed on Lee Sion.

"Now that I see her in person, I finally get why Writer Kim said it had to be Lee Sion."

"···Writer really does have a different eye for visuals."

As far as visuals went, even Changsu no longer had any doubts.

There were idols who looked unbelievably great when they were only among themselves, but lost their shine the moment they stood among actors.

Lee Sion wasn’t like that—he had just confirmed it with his own two eyes.

But visuals were basically just the starting point for an actor.

The real thing was acting.

"I’m not planning to go easy."

"Actor Yoo, do your best."

Lee Sion’s scene partner this time was Yoo Jinseok, an acting monster who people even said could “act handsome” with looks alone.

If the partner actor acted well, Yoo Jinseok would elevate it and create the best chemistry, but if the acting was even slightly clumsy, Yoo Jinseok would just as often turn the other person into a prop—so in another sense, Yoo Jinseok was called a female-lead killer.

Even decent actresses got tense if their counterpart was Yoo Jinseok, so if it was Lee Sion—an idol, not even an actor—then even if it was a short scene, it was obvious she would suffer.

'She’ll shed some tears.'

Changsu had crammed in a total beginner like Lee Sion because of Writer Kim’s stubbornness, but that didn’t mean he had even the slightest intention of compromising when it came to directing the work.