Chapter 108: Wind
“Thank you for your hard work!”
Muyoung shook his head and greeted the staff. He wondered why they had to come all the way to Suwon to film, but now he knew why. There weren’t many places as spacious as this one, complete with a shower room.
“Muyoung, you must be exhausted.”
“Director, you too. Thank you for filming such beautiful footage. Oh! Are you moving that? Let me help.”
“No, it’s fine.”
“I’m free now that I’m done.”
Washed of the ink, Muyoung’s face looked far from the vampire he had portrayed earlier. He looked refreshed, thanks to the warm water.
“Muyoung, come here for a moment.”
Gyeongmin called him over.
It was to plan the shooting schedule with the assistant director. They each held their diaries and pointed to the dates.
“All five actors are available from next week to the following week. Since the teachers will be performing in a play, we’ll be shooting every other week after that.”
“Taeseok and Muyoung are with our agency, so there shouldn’t be any issues, but Bora is still up in the air.”
“The announcement for the second audition hasn’t come out yet.”
If that was the case, they had to film as many scenes with her as possible the following week. Muyoung flipped through the script.
“Then we can go straight to scene seven.”
They could film all the scenes where they gathered and talked. The assistant director asked Muyoung,
“I heard you have to go to school. Will that be okay?”
“Yes, as long as you schedule it for the afternoon.”
“Alright, I’ll do that.”
“Thank you!”
“Oh, and Muyoung, there might be a location shoot next month. I’ll let you know the details as soon as they’re confirmed.”
“Hyung? What kind of location shoot?”
At Muyoung’s words, Gyeongmin laughed as if he had already forgotten.
“They say Romin’s side is reviewing
“Wow, I completely forgot.”
The travel location would only be decided once the members were confirmed. The assistant director jotted something down upon hearing that.
“Then, let’s see. The next shoot will be the day after tomorrow. It’s supposed to rain from Thursday onwards, so we should do the outdoor scenes first. Hopefully, there will be some wind.”
“Won’t there be some wind before the rain?”
“I don’t know. Well, even the weather forecasters don’t know for sure.”
It was a scene where the members of the insomnia club lay on the rooftop of their meeting building, chatting. They even drank beer, hoping to fall asleep, but to no avail.
“Just in case, we should prepare a small fan.”
“Won’t that pick up sound?”
“A small one might be okay. Or we could fan it ourselves. Haha.”
The assistant director chuckled and closed his notebook.
The staff struggled until the end to remove the black dye. Muyoung rolled up his sleeves and approached them.
“Muyoung?”
“I’m done with today’s schedule, so I’ll help out a little before I go.”
“Sheesh, if you’re helping, what am I doing here?”
Even Gyeongmin ended up helping clean up the studio. And so, the first shoot ended warmly.
Meanwhile, Director Cheolmin couldn’t sleep, enthralled as he reviewed the footage. What a great start.
The day after tomorrow, in a dilapidated building on the outskirts of Seoul.
Muyoung stood at the entrance, looking up. It looked like something out of a Hong Kong movie. The paint was old and faded, and the concrete was exposed.
“Where did they even find this place?”
“I know, right? It fits the vibe of the project perfectly.”
“Just hope it doesn’t collapse.”
Taeseok, who had come with him, felt the same. He chuckled and stepped inside. When Gyeongmin pressed the elevator button, the doors opened.
Zziiing—
“……!”
“What’s wrong?”
Muyoung hesitated to step in. There was a woman standing in the corner, her back turned. Damn. She didn’t reflect in the mirror, so she must be a ghost.
“It’s nothing.”
Muyoung stepped in gently. The ghost stood still, like a stone statue. Was it because the building was old? The atmosphere felt strange.
Ding-dong—
The elevator arrived at the 12th floor. The hallway on either side was already filled with staff and filming equipment.
“Hello!”
“Hello, Muyoung, Taeseok.”
“Teachers! Hello?”
The two teachers and Bora were already there. All the actors were present, but it seemed the set wasn’t ready yet.
“Everyone seems busy today?”
“Camera one keeps turning on and off.”
“And we did a preliminary survey, but stuff piled up, so there’s no room for the camera. They’re clearing it out now.”
“I see.”
Muyoung sat down for his makeup, acknowledging the situation. In the meantime, the actors could get their makeup done and rehearse their lines.
Jinrim sat across from Muyoung.
“Muyoung.”
“Yes, Teacher.”
“I saw the footage Director Bae showed me, and it was amazing. How did you act like that?”
She spoke softly. She was too young to be called a grandmother, so perhaps she was like an aunt? She sounded like a kind cousin.
Muyoung shyly replied to her compliment,
“I just did what the director told me to do.”
“Really? You’ve only been acting for two years, right?”
“Yes, after this year.”
“That’s incredible.”
She rummaged through her pockets as she said that. She pulled out a neatly folded piece of paper and handed it to Muyoung, who looked at it quizzically.
“It’s a review. I wrote down my thoughts while watching the footage. Even though I’ve been acting my whole life, I still had a lot of thoughts. I hope it helps.”
“Wow, Teacher! Thank you!”
“Oh dear.”
Overwhelmed with gratitude, Muyoung bowed deeply. The stylist was startled and put down her brush. She smiled and stood up.
“I’ll leave you to finish up. I need to go over the script with Bora.”
“Yes, Teacher!”
Muyoung clutched the paper, unable to contain his excitement. He couldn’t wait to see what she had written!
Noticing his eagerness, the stylist smiled and put down her brush.
“Shall we start with your hair?”
“Is that okay?”
“We have to do it anyway. You can read it while I work on your hair.”
“Thank you!”
The paper was filled with tiny, meticulous handwriting.
As Jinrim had said, most of it was a review, but there were also acting tips scattered throughout.
[-Your screams were good, but I wondered what it would have been like if they sounded more like a child’s cries instead of a harsh, metallic sound. Also, it was a shame that the ink obscured your hand acting. I guess that was because it was a one-take shoot. Your wide-eyed expression was really good. I can never do that—]
Seeing it from a third-person perspective gave him new insights.
Right. When screaming, he could have made a sound like that. A childlike, piercing cry would have been good, too.
“What did she write?”
“It’s like a tip… Teachers are definitely different.”
She was not only talented but also had decades of experience. Her analytical skills were sharp, and she was considerate in her delivery.
“Alright, now let’s do your face.”
Muyoung closed his eyes, reflecting on the teacher’s feedback. In his mind, he simulated the scene dozens of times, thinking about what he should do in front of the camera next.
Then,
Whoosh—
“Huh?”
He suddenly felt a chill and opened his eyes.
All he could see was the stylist, focused on doing his makeup. Glancing to the side, he saw something wriggling at the end of the dark hallway.
“What’s wrong?”
“……This building must be really old.”
“It used to be a nursing home. Now it’s just regular offices, but they’re mostly closed.”
“I see.”
Maybe that was it.
There were far too many malevolent spirits, so many that he couldn’t even focus. From will-o’-the-wisps of unknown origin to spirits in human form.
‘Jeez, this is distracting.’
Ghosts could sense when someone could see them.
The ones clinging to the staff gradually gathered around Muyoung.
“Alright, all done.”
“Thank you.”
Muyoung quickly got up and headed to where the actors were waiting.
It was just a small space next to the stairs. Bora was sharing snacks with the teachers.
“Are you done?”
“Yeah. What were you guys doing?”
“Talking about our high school academy days.”
“You two were friends? That’s nice. Working on a project together as friends.”
It seemed like they were chatting under the guise of rehearsing lines.
Muyoung joined them, waiting for his cue. Chatting like that was important for building chemistry between actors.
“We’re going to start, everyone!”
“Finally.”
“This way, please!”
At night, lights were set up all over the rooftop.
The five actors lay down in a circle, their heads close together, following the staff’s instructions. They listened to the director’s instructions while lying down.
“We’ll start with a high-angle shot, then move to individual close-ups. Be careful, as the lights might be blinding. We’re starting with scene 23.”
“Understood.”
“And we need some trash to blow by…”
The director looked troubled, holding an empty chip bag. It was the same kind Bora had been eating.
“You ate that earlier, didn’t you?”
“They said they needed the bag.”
“They say you’ll have three years of bad luck if you eat the prop.”
“Be quiet.”
The two whispered as if they were camping. Though they tried to be quiet, everyone could hear them. The staff laughed and continued organizing the cables.
“We bought the quietest fan we could find, but when we tested it, it picked up on the mic. We’ll fan it by hand.”
“Can you manage that?”
“We’ll try our best.”
Concerned, Taeseok asked, and the director clenched his fist in determination. Well, the shoot had begun. The director chased away bugs clinging to the lights and called for action.
“Rolling!”
“Rolling! Stand by!”
“Ready! Action!”
The surroundings fell silent in an instant.
The five actors lying on the mat looked up at the night sky over Seoul.
“The sky is clear tonight.”
It was filled with clouds, but that would be fixed in post-production.
The nurse mumbled, and the thief agreed.
“Sometimes, insomnia isn’t so bad. If I had slept, I wouldn’t have seen this.”
“The stars in my dreams are more twinkling and beautiful.”
“Were you all asleep with your eyes open?”
“Are you stupid? You’ll sleep with your mouth hanging open if you sleep outside, even on a nice day.”
The tone was similar to the conversation they had earlier on the stairs. Though it was only their second shoot, the scene itself was from the latter half of the story.
The director breathed a sigh of relief, seeing how naturally they blended into the scene.
‘Wind! Now!’
At his signal, a staff member carefully fanned the air. But the trash didn’t move, and the director called for a cut.
“Let’s go again. Sorry.”
“No worries, lying down like this is nice.”
The teachers joked. The director asked the staff to fan harder.
“Action!”
“The sky is clear tonight.”
The five actors delivered the same lines as before.
Since they had already done it once, it felt much smoother and more natural. But the problem was—
“Cut!”
The trash wouldn’t move no matter how much they fanned it. After about five failed takes,
“Should we take a break?”
At Jinrim’s suggestion, everyone nodded.
“This is tricky. Haha. We can’t control nature.”
“Should we shoot the next scene?”
“We’d have to rearrange the cameras. Let’s try a few more times.”
As everyone huddled together to come up with a solution, Muyoung opened a new bag of chips and munched on them. They must be sponsored, as there were five identical bags stacked up.
Swooosh—
The ghosts slowly gathered, as if trying to snatch the food from their owner.
It was like a dog trying to steal its owner’s food.
Muyoung pulled the chips away and firmly refused.
“Uh! No!”
“……What?”
“No! These chips are too delicious to share. Haha.”
They seemed starving, probably because they couldn’t get offerings. But Muyoung was hungry too. As he continued to munch on the chips, ignoring them, one ghost quickly lunged at him.
Whooosh!
Smack!
The bag on his knees fell to the floor with a quiet but definite thud.
Muyoung stuck out his lips. Jeez, why are the ghosts bothering me while I’m eating?
“Huh? Just now?”
A staff member noticed and held up their palm, looking confused.
“Was there wind? Muyoung, what just happened?”
“Huh? Wind?”
“Yeah, that’s why the bag fell, right?”
At the staff’s words, Muyoung picked up the bag and laughed, an idea forming.
“Oh, I guess there was wind. Looks like it’s starting to blow.”