The Script-Eating Actor – Chapter 2

Ch 2

“Director, this is Park Chan-ik, Team Leader at L&K. I’m calling regarding Song Mun-gyo’s casting for this project.”

“It’s just B-team filming, right? Six o’clock? The call time seems too early. Even if we take our time, arriving by eight should be enough… What do you mean, ignoring me? That can’t be… Hello? Hello… Argh! That bastard! He hung up first!”

The Management Team 1 office was a chaotic scene, with numerous managers wrestling with their phones and planning and public relations teams all mixed together, resembling a battlefield.

And in the middle of this heated battlefield, I was cautiously looking around, hovering near the round table where scripts were piled up.

“Jae-hee, you’re here again?”

Manager Jae-ik Hyung, who was sitting right next to the round table, greeted me. I bowed my head slightly and asked.

“Hyung. Is there anything new that’s come in?”

“Scripts? All those piled up on the right are new projects that are going into production in the first half of the year. Honestly, there are so many…”

Where Jae-ik Hyung pointed, new scripts were piled up like a tower.

“Can I take a look?”

“Well, it’s not like they’ll wear out if you look at them. Sure.”

“Yes, thank you.”

I bowed and approached the so-called ‘book tower’ where the scripts were piled up.

Romance, romantic comedy, coming-of-age, historical dramas, thrillers, and more.

Mostly movies and dramas, with the occasional musical and large-scale commercial theater script mixed in. These scripts, piled up regardless of genre, gather here, waiting for the perfect protagonist to claim them.

Anyway, there are so many.

But among all these scripts, there isn’t a single role that I can play.

It’s only natural.

After all, who would send a precious script to an image minor role who barely got a single shot in a morning drama?

But it didn’t matter.

Even though no one told me to read the scripts, I stood there steadfastly and began to browse through them.

“… And so, I saw you on that evening street in Ssangmun-dong…”

Reading these brand-new scripts, where the main character hasn’t been decided yet, makes me feel like I’m on set as the lead, lost in a delusion.

Although I can’t play these roles, encountering such attractive works gives me the drive to keep moving forward.

At that moment, a spoiled complaint caught my ear.

“Ugh, another romance?! I told you I want to do a thriller! Something where I can really explode with my acting skills, huh? Get me something like that!”

“Mun-gyo, trust me just this once, okay? This time, it’s a true one-top role, so your presence will be huge! Once this drama is over, I promise I’ll get you a thriller. I really will!”

Song Mun-gyo, one of L&K’s flagship actors.

Box office scores of 960,000 and 460,000.

Even though he flopped two movies in a row, he’s still a hot actor in his third year since debut, with scripts constantly coming in.

He spoke with a pompous air.

“Hyung, I’ve been saying it since I started my last project. I’m tired of romance! How long am I going to keep singing about love?”

“….”

Some people can’t even do it even if they want to.

Some people kick it away and only want to do what they want.

Did he sense my gaze? I ended up making eye contact with Song Mun-gyo.

“…..”

I quickly turned my head away, but Song Mun-gyo’s cold gaze pierced my mind. Song Mun-gyo’s eyes seemed to be asking, ‘What are you doing here?’

Song Mun-gyo.

My peer and someone I spent my trainee days with, Song Mun-gyo, had already risen to a position where he could make his manager sweat and demand the projects he wanted.

It’s the complete opposite of me.

And now, he doesn’t even acknowledge me, as if he doesn’t know someone like me, with a strange sneer.

With just a look, he’s telling me that you and I live in different worlds.

S*it.

I turned my head away.

Jealousy mixed with envy. If I show these pathetic emotions, Song Mun-gyo will feel the thrill of victory. There’s no need to get caught up in this provocation.

“Then, Hyung, take care.”

“Yeah, you too.”

I put the script down on the round table and was about to move my feet. But.

Something strange happened.

『Would you like to absorb the script?』

The script spoke to me.

*

… Wha, what is it?

I quickly looked around.

Jae-ik Hyung, who was next to me, was busy marking something on the calendar, and no one around me had spoken to me.

At that moment, I heard the same voice again.

『The drama is available for absorption.』

… Th, Youth Train?

The script I was holding was indeed Youth Train.

A 16-episode mini-series produced by Parangsae Media and broadcast on SBC, a drama where that bastard Song Mun-gyo is set to be the lead. A youth romance depicting the love of college students in their twenties, which Song Mun-gyo complains so much about not wanting to do.

With trembling hands, I lifted the script again. Then, I heard the same voice.

『Would you like to absorb the script?』

Thud!

I slumped down into a chair at the table.

… Wh, what is this?

I don’t know what it is, but the script was talking. With a voice that only I could hear. Wait a minute, is this a dream?

“What’s wrong?”

At Jae-ik Hyung’s question, I just shook my head with a blank expression.

“Ah, it’s nothing. But Hyung. Can I take this script to the practice room to look at?”

“Which script? Oh, Youth Train? There are a lot of them. You can take it. But you know you have to keep good care of the book, right? It’ll be a headache if it leaks out anywhere.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Tsk, you work so hard, you should catch the team leaders’ eyes… Well, work hard. Take care.”

I hurriedly left the office and walked down the hallway, clutching the script tightly in my hand.

『Would you like to absorb the script?』

It was still asking me.

Just in case, I wondered if it was only this script, so I picked up another script in the practice room.

『The drama is available for absorption.』

『The movie is available for absorption.』

『The movie is available for absorption.』

“Am I crazy…”

I swallowed hard.

It wasn’t just Youth Train. All the scripts were talking to me. Asking me to absorb them. But, out of the blue, absorption?

『If you absorb the script, you will be 100% immersed in the role described in the script.』

It’s saying that I can live as the character in the script.

No matter how much I think about it, I’m not crazy, and this situation isn’t a dream either.

… D*mn it. With a ‘whatever happens, happens’ attitude, I shouted ‘absorb’ in my mind.

Then, something amazing happened.

The book opened with a whoosh, and then, it emitted a bright light and swallowed me whole.

And an amazing, miraculous thing happened.

Information about the roles in , their lives, past, feelings, physical characteristics, the image expressed by the writer, etc.

Everything that could be found in the script entered my head along with the light, a bizarre experience.

“Hoo━ ha!”

Once the light disappeared, I took a deep breath.

“The book disappeared?”

As the book disappeared, all the information and lines from the script were lodged in my head. And as if they were the words I originally wanted to say, the lines began to flow out of my mouth.

“Like you said, since Kang-hyeok is my friend, I couldn’t see anything else. In the neighborhood, no one messes with me, I ride an expensive motorcycle, and when I drink and smoke, girls follow me around. It was totally my world. But you know what?”

As the lines went on, I felt a tingling sensation of dopamine being released. This power was pounding my heart like an engine, leading me to a climax.

“Even in that environment, I was different. Even though the popular Kang-hyeok is my friend, I’m a fatherless bastard, the son of a single mother selling tteokbokki in the market, and now that I’m twenty, I realize that the world Kim Kang-hyeok and I live in, which I thought was on the same plane, is completely different.”

Not a single word was wrong, it was perfect.

Moreover, as if I had pulled the limits of this role, ‘Lee Woo-jin’, from my ability, my vocalization and elocution had also been upgraded considerably.

Something that is logically impossible.

“…. Th, this is really…”

I thought about the that had completely entered my head. This is real.

If they asked me to play anyone in Youth Train, I was confident I could do it better than anyone else.

“…It’s possible.”

I don’t know how this movie-like ability was given to me.

But one thing is certain.

I can succeed too.