Free Web NovelWhen he had received her first-round acting video, he hadn’t had particularly high expectations.
‘Her voice really was good. And for someone with six months of experience, her diction was excellent.’
The lines coming out of Han Yeoreum’s mouth felt vivid, as if you could clearly sense what she wanted to convey.
‘But she’s still lacking in many ways. It’s hard to say she’s broken out of being an amateur.’
But it was that female senior’s recommendation.
‘If that extremely picky senior approved her, she must at least be above average....’
She always gave decisive, sharp advice.
It was impossible not to expect that she might be hiding something impressive.
‘Still, surely that voice isn’t her limit.’
Team Leader Sung glanced around the room.
‘Everyone really prepared hard.’
Since it was a high-teen romantic comedy web drama, most applicants were dressed in school uniforms.
And everyone sparkled as if they had gone to a salon early that morning.
“Contestant number 49! Choi Jiyeong, beginning my performance.”
A sheet of paper placed in the lobby—this was a short scene from 〈ParCheHi〉.
⟪Pi Chaewon, an ordinary girl, wakes up to find herself inside a pure romance manga overflowing with clichés.
Now reduced to a background character behind the heroine <Hina>, she delivers this line.
Pi Chaewon: (frowning) “Ha... unbelievable....”⟫
‘It’s not a complicated line.’
Since it was just a scene showing the protagonist’s indifferent personality.
“Ha... unbelievable....”
One contestant tilted her head sideways like she was exhausted; another scrunched her face as if annoyed.
“Yes, thank you.”
They were all slightly different, but none of them delivered a noteworthy performance.
‘Everyone’s just... fine. No impact.’
Like dolls on a conveyor belt, the applicants recited the same line and disappeared.
“Next number, please.”
Team Leader Sung made small check marks on the papers with a pen—trying to pick out those who at least wouldn’t look terrible next to the male lead, Joo Junseo.
And then—
“Contestant number 101! Han Yeoreum.”
The name he had been waiting for.
Team Leader Sung °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° lifted his head—and was stunned.
‘...Same person?’
The contestant in front of him looked completely different from the face in the documents.
‘Seriously?’
Disheveled long hair, glasses, a loose skirt, and a huge backpack you’d never see in a pure romance manga. She looked exactly like a real Korean high school girl.
“Team Leader, Team Leader. Look at that...! That’s exactly what I wanted!”
The writer sitting next to him whispered excitedly.
She had been unimpressed even by the well-prepared contestants before.
‘Indeed....’
Yeoreum’s arrival was a shockingly fresh contrast.
‘Does she have no intention of looking pretty at all?’
No styling whatsoever, her face bare and fresh, hair tied back in a rough knot.
‘She looks different from the photo, but this version is more—’
Team Leader Sung found himself drawn more strongly to Yeoreum in the flesh.
“Well then, I’ll begin my performance.”
Yeoreum, smiling brightly a moment ago, instantly changed her expression.
The irises that had gleamed under the lights turned dull. Exactly like the dead-fish eyes described in the script.
‘Oh... now that I see it, she’s a bit different.’
Yeoreum looked around, then dragged an empty chair toward her.
Scrape—.
“What’s she doing?”
“No idea...?”
The judges, previously bored stiff by repetitive lines and repetitive acting, began to perk up. Something about her was unmistakably different.
‘Definitely something unusual. How do I even describe it?’
As if bewitched, life returned to the judges’ faces—judges who, after hours of repetition, had developed dead-fish eyes themselves. Team Leader Sung also became curious about Yeoreum.
「A Gaze That Lingers One More Time (C)」
Offline or online, what a star needs is the gaze of the public! Not only your real presence but also your photos, videos, even your voice—people stop just a second longer to focus on you.
At that moment, although the judges didn’t know it, Yeoreum’s skill activated. And everyone’s eyes naturally centered on her.
Thud—.
Yeoreum dropped her backpack onto the floor. The heavy sound revealed just how many problem books were inside.
“Hoo....”
Then she plopped down into the chair she had prepared. This wasn’t simply reciting a line.
‘Yes. She feels like a real person.’ freewebnovel.cσ๓
Every movement resembled the main character Pi Chaewon from 〈The Cherry on the Parfait Belongs to the Heroine〉. Team Leader Sung was struck by each of her choices.
Rip—.
Yeoreum opened her backpack and pulled out a problem workbook. The fluttering sound of pages turning was crisp.
Then she paused at one page.
“Ah....”
Yeoreum plucked off a pink heart-shaped sticky note and crumpled it.
“Unbelievable....”
Slam—!
She closed the workbook.
That was it.
The performance was over.
Meeting Yeoreum’s jaded eyes, Team Leader Sung felt it instinctively.
‘...Now I understand why the senior recommended her.’
Yeoreum was an actor who knew how to add story to a moment.
* * *
Most applicants kept their focus on “Japanese pure romance manga.”
That was the problem.
‘The key of this drama is that she must feel like a real Korean high school girl.’
That’s what makes the cheesy lines like “Let’s take one step forward with each other’s courage, okay...! Because we’re friends...!” and sudden scenes like getting locked in a gym storage room actually funny.
‘Good thing I watched the behind-the-scenes clips.’
Intube
@JC ENM — 2.01M subscribers
[The Cherry on the Parfait Belongs to the Heroine — Behind-the-Scenes Interview] 7:43
210K views
—I also thought I’d get to wear a pretty school uniform at first, but nope... it looked exactly like the one I wore in high school. The writer kept insisting I absolutely had to wear this one—!
So I wore the same uniform I’d worn in high school. The same sneakers. The same backpack.
Just as the writer intended—to show the exact protagonist in her head.
‘And one more thing.’
I mixed in the “sending messages via sticky notes inside textbooks” bit—one of the small scenes in 〈ParCheHi〉. It was a habit of <Hina>, the sunshine-style heroine whom Pi Chaewon stares at with dead-fish eyes.
‘Leaving cute messages everywhere to emphasize her sunshine character.’
[See? It’s always more energizing when we’re together ٩(๑>∀<๑)۶ Humans can’t live alone after all. —Hina—]
The content wasn’t much.
But even simple notes like this become heart-melting charms to a cold, aloof delinquent king—that’s pure romance manga cliché.
“May I see the sticky note from the workbook?”
The woman who looked like the writer’s eyes sparkled. I uncrumpled the note and handed it to her.
Since the drama hadn’t come out yet, I wrote it in a way similar in nuance to the note that would eventually appear.
‘Romance-manga heroine lines are all the same anyway.’
The small sticky note was passed from the writer to the next judge, and the next.
“You interpreted it correctly.”
After it reached the last person—
Trring-!
System
[100%] of the audience is focused on you!
Current audience: 8
The performance has concluded successfully.
▶Current room heat (20°C) [F]
A status window popped up. It seemed I’d made an impression.
I blinked once, breaking the dead-fish expression I’d held all along.
“I don’t think we need to see anything else. Let’s start schedule coordination.”
And just like that, I was cast as the lead of the web drama in a single stroke.
* * *
Click. Pause.
Do Gyeoul stopped at the same scene yet again.
“25 minutes, 27 seconds....”
Muttering, she picked up a pen and scribbled something down.
The notebook in her hand was so worn at the edges it looked ready to fall apart.
Click—.
As if possessed, Gyeoul dragged the playback bar forward once more.
“Why is it?”
Covering one wall of her room were photos—screenshots of the film Yeoreum had acted in last time.
