Chapter 135

Posted by Kuze, ? Views, Released on February 25, 2025

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Scene Number 17 was the first meeting between Lee Hyuk-soo’s landlord, and another protagonist of the story, Gil Soo-jin, and Lee Yoo-joo.

Up to this point, the story had been told from their separate perspectives, but from here on out, their narratives would interlock like gears.

The mother, Gil Soo-jin, who wanted her son to achieve academic success and lead a successful life.

And Lee Yoo-joo, who seemed to hold the answers.

In a way, it was not unlike a chase.

The pursuer and the pursued.

Only, what differentiated this from a typical chase was this: “The pursued has the upper hand.”

Im Mi-ran, who played Seoyeon and Gil Soo-jin, knew this well.

Gil Soo-jin needed Lee Yoo-joo’s college admission plan, that portfolio.

More precisely, the impeccable portfolio that had helped Lee Yoo-joo’s brother, Lee Seok-chan, become the top student at Baekyeon University.

She needed it memorized, internalized. She wanted to claim Lee Yoo-joo, who possessed it, before anyone else.

This was her goal.

“Perhaps we’ve chosen something too intense to start with.”

This was what veteran actors, seasoned in their craft, thought.

There was no particular action, no heightened emotion to be seen.

Because of this, it was all the more difficult to perform.

If only there were exaggerated emotions to immerse oneself in, to pour dialogue out in their wake.

But this scene was calm.

Infinitely tranquil yet icy, and beneath it, a heated emotion had to be conveyed.

It was a highly complex scene.

It was also the part that revealed the essence and message of the work.

The two protagonists driving the drama.

Their meeting made the script reading a fitting start, yet…

“It’s hard.”

“Yes, it is difficult.”

There was no actor present in this setting who hadn’t seen and analyzed “The Chaser.”

From young actors driven by simple jealousy, to rising stars who saw themselves in its brilliance.

They all observed the two performances with different lenses.

And then—

Im Mi-ran, facing Seoyeon, smiled inwardly.

“She’s on a roll.”

Seoyeon’s atmosphere had changed.

There was no way she couldn’t notice it.

Perhaps others couldn’t clearly differentiate between the previous Seoyeon and the present-day one, since there were many overlapping traits between Lee Yoo-joo and Seoyeon.

The same indifferent expression, the same mild tone.

Similarities in their subtle, minimal movements.

But there were distinct differences as well.

“Lee Yoo-joo is an entirely cynical character.”

Since childhood, she had endured an education akin to abuse by her parents, alongside her brother, Lee Seok-chan.

When she saw her younger brother fail to keep up and suffer the resulting discrimination, she began to believe that she simply had to succeed at all costs.

Years passed.

By the time Lee Yoo-joo entered high school, studying was simply a mandatory achievement, an obligatory goal.

There was no dream, no future ambition for her.

She was merely someone meant to restore her father’s glory as a “college entrance coordinator.”

So, the adults who desired her,

A girl who despised students who mechanically studied,

Her contempt.

Lee Yoo-joo’s face remained expressionless, but there was a deep loathing in her eyes, an intense disgust evident in the stillness of her gaze.

It wasn’t just a feeling; micro-movements in her facial muscles contributed to this impression.

The slightly furrowed brows.

The narrower eyes.

The slightly contorted lips.

They made her appear as though she were mocking, perhaps even self-mocking. After all, her disdain was not only for others but for herself as well.

“Miss Yoo-joo. Nice to meet you.”

Im Mi-ran, filled with anticipation, greeted her as Gil Soo-jin.

“Our Min-seo gets along with you well. If we’re classmates in the same high school, we’ll likely be seeing each other forever.”

Scene Number 17.

With her admission to Taeyang High School, and subsequently to the dormitory, Lee Yoo-joo was paired with Gil Soo-jin’s daughter, Lee Min-seo, simply because they shared the same surname and happened to sit next to each other.

Gil Soo-jin considered this a stroke of luck, as her desired target was now sitting next to her daughter.

Thus, she asked her daughter to invite Lee Yoo-joo over, aiming to win her favor and probe her inner thoughts, hoping to obtain the flawless portfolio of Lee Yoo-joo’s brother, Lee Seok-chan, by any means necessary.

“Perhaps.”

In response to Gil Soo-jin’s attempt, Lee Yoo-joo smiled faintly, a smile like a painting.

A non-human smile, drawn out.

“Forever, I’m not so sure.”

“So you say. But Min-seo has told me quite a bit about you.”

“Really? I haven’t had much conversation with Min-seo, though.”

“It’s fine if not. We can get to know each other going forward.”

“That’s correct.”

A calm exchange.

Both sides exchanging dialogue with smiles on their faces.

“If there’s anything you need, let me know. As the mother of your friend, I’ll do what I can to help.”

“Thank you, but I’m fine.”

“No, it’s not like that. You have needs and desires too, surely. Tell me what they are, and I can make them happen for you.”

Having said that much, Gil Soo-jin looked directly at Lee Yoo-joo with confidence.

Her father, once a renowned college entrance coordinator but now a failure,

What could he gain by ensuring Lee Yoo-joo’s admission to Taeyang High?

Publicity.

Her daughter, who would showcase the perfect college admission plan, the curriculum he possessed.

This was what he aimed to display, to show her.

That was why Gil Soo-jin was confident.

It was simply reaching for the product being sold.

More than that, she considered herself helpful to the other party.

Taeyang High School.

A generous hand extended to those far inferior, extending invitations to this “Sky Garden.”

“Thank you.”

Lee Yoo-joo responded with a smile to such pressure from Gil Soo-jin, as though completely disinterested.

A peculiar tension was felt between the two.

“Her eyes.”

Young actors participating in “Sky Garden” swallowed their dry mouths, focusing on the eyes.

Even without much dialogue, the intensity of the acting was so great during this script reading that it was unrecognizable as such.

“Her eyes aren’t laughing with her smile.”

Gil Soo-jin’s eyes were sharp, like needles trying to pierce through Lee Yoo-joo’s inner thoughts.

Conversely, Lee Yoo-joo simply regarded her with eyes filled with disdain and contempt.

A duel of swords and shields seemed to play out between them.

“Oh, right.”

It was Gil Soo-jin who steered the conversation during this quiet exchange of gazes.

“I heard your brother was top of Baekyeon University. In medical school too.”

“Yes.”

“How proud you must be. That’s truly an extraordinary achievement, isn’t it?”

A faint smile appeared on Lee Yoo-joo’s face for the first time upon hearing Gil Soo-jin’s words, but it held ‘discomfort’ beyond mere contempt.

This feeling was vividly displayed.

But only for a moment.

“Extraordinary.”

Lee Yoo-joo smiled back in response.

“Indeed.”

The tone of her voice was different from before.

A clear trace of anger was evident.

Her slightly trembling voice seemed to show Lee Yoo-joo’s emotions well.

It gave off a tension like a fuse catching fire on a bomb.

As though, at any moment, Lee Yoo-joo might do something to Gil Soo-jin.

It was a scene of imminent conflict, fitting best.

“To Min-seo.”

Lee Yoo-joo, looking at Gil Soo-jin who was looking at her, erased her smile.

“I’ll be friendly.”

She responded in a dry, emotionless way.

Yet, there was an undeniable emotion behind it.

Even faced with this, Gil Soo-jin simply responded with a satisfying smile.

“Yes, thank you. Miss Yoo-joo.”

And the dialogue ended there.

“….”

A strange silence lingered from the time the script was put down until the moment they sat down again.

“Wow.”

The exclamation came late from the director Kim Il-soo.

His face was excited as he looked at the two actresses who had just delivered an intense performance.

“Great, this is. Honestly, I was wondering if there might be some way to adjust the tone or find a new emotion, but… there is none.”

Everyone agreed inwardly at his words.

It was true.

There was no flaw in the scene they had just performed.

It had the clean quality of a polished drama scene, as though it had been edited.

With Seoyeon dressed as a schoolgirl, it was visually perfect for the scene, making it feel almost exactly like being on a real filming set.

“Thank you.”

At this lavish praise, Seoyeon gave a slight bow, but showed no big reaction.

She seemed to be composing herself, merely smoothing her eyes with her fingers.

At this,

“How was it?”

Han Sung-jin asked his friend Kim Hyun-seok, sitting beside him.

“Not a joke.”

“….”

At this, Kim Hyun-seok looked sharply at Han Sung-jin.

Not a joke?

‘Damn.’

It seemed like he would let out a harsh curse.

He didn’t want to admit it, he didn’t want to, but instinctively felt a sense of crisis.

Kim Hyun-seok’s role was that of the twin brother of Min-seo, Seoyeon’s counterpart.

Unlike the rather mediocre Min-seo, he was an exceptional character in many ways who would have multiple interactions with Lee Yoo-joo.

“Is there any way you won’t be overshadowed when you appear with her?”

He’d be overshadowed.

He had never even thought about this possibility.

He had always been proud of his acting skills.

Because those around him—other actors and his agency—had always uplifted him.

But after watching her performance just now, all those praises seemed hollow, mere lip service.

It probably wasn’t just him.

The young actors who had passed the audition for the drama likely all shared a similar thought.

Before, the looks people gave Seoyeon contained envy, suspicion, and even disdain.

When seen only on-screen or on TV, one might think, ‘I can do that too,’

But directly facing it, the pressure was completely different.

To begin with, Im Mi-ran, who had played Gil Soo-jin, had been truly devoted to the acting.

As though ready to devour the opponent’s presence to the bone if she let her guard down.

But Seoyeon had received that intensity much too calmly.

As if it were simply natural.

That disparity gave young actors a sense of defeat.

‘She doesn’t even seem to have us in her mind at all.’

As if she didn’t care how other actors thought of her at all.

Seoyeon was simply calmly going over the script.

Without having directly acted against her, Kim Hyun-sek already felt this intense sense of defeat, so much that he bit his lower lip.

Then,

“?”

Seoyeon moved her eyes toward Kim Hyun-sek, sensing his gaze.

Upon making eye contact, Kim Hyun-sek hastily looked down.

“Why are you like that? Is she looking at you?”

“…No.”

It was frustrating, anger-provoking.

The emotions were complicated, but showing outright hostility as before was difficult.

‘That coin…’

The coin was still in his pocket.

For some reason, this made it hard to look at Seoyeon with the same hostile stare as before.

Though he didn’t know what the coin meant,

his instincts had naturally led him to conclude that avoiding it was for the best.

Han Sung-jin tilted his head at his friend’s strange reaction.

But then he nodded.

Ah, probably worrying about performing alongside Joo Seo-yeon.

“Are you already worried about the filming?”

“…..”

Upon hearing Han Sung-jin’s question, Kim Hyun-sek nodded slowly. Though in a completely different sense.

***

‘Surely, it’s hard.’

After finishing today’s script reading, Seoyeon let out a sigh.

She wasn’t sure about others, but for Seoyeon, it had been an extremely exhausting session.

She hadn’t received any notable critiques on her acting, and there were no major points to revise in the script.

Externally, Seoyeon had acted the most comfortably today.

But,

‘It makes me feel uneasy inside.’

Acting hatred for others is difficult.

In a previous life, it had simply been an unknown emotion and ‘Joo Seo-yeon’s life hadn’t encountered many reasons for such hatred.

Good parents.

Good friends.

Things that she considered perhaps the biggest luck bestowed upon her.

Thus, it was difficult with the emotion of hatred.

If only…

She hadn’t chased down Seohui Jo and hadn’t attended the upper-class party.

Hadn’t met ‘Ro’ there, it might have remained as a vague emotion.

The feelings she experienced back then were much deeper than now.

Much stronger than mere anger.

Something that couldn’t be accepted.

The sensation of seeing a fundamentally different kind of existence.

Though she wanted to express that sentiment through acting, it wasn’t going as well as she’d hoped.

Everyone praised it, but personally, she remained unsatisfied.

She believed she could have done it better.

That kind of feeling, roughly.

“Hoooooo.”

Sighing, Seoyeon turned on her computer.

The recently purchased graphics card began to glow in operation.

‘Then again, I didn’t originally plan to change it.’

It happened because her dad, Young-bin, had persuaded her, saying that graphics cards were cheap these days. In fact, this kind of purchase was quite rare, so she happily took it as a gift.

Seoyeon’s parents didn’t expect anything from the money she earned.

What Seoyeon made belonged entirely to her.

If she wanted to do something, they supported her fully.

If times were tough, they’d listen.

…Of course, her father often made her want to hit him.

Roughly speaking, that feeling.

So perhaps, it’s harder to fully immerse herself in the character of Lee Yoo-joo.

Because immersing herself made her too distressed, even more so than remembering the killer Cha Sooah from her past life.

‘Possibly because it strangely feels realistic.’

If it was hitting closer to home than even murder, then maybe the empathy had gone too deep.

“Alright.”

Seoyeon barely composed herself.