Chapter 16

Saela

“You all can take a seat anywhere,” Shin Il tells Jae and I when we arrive at the first meeting of all the cast. We nod to him and move into the room. There’s a long and wide table with chairs on each side filling the room, people already sitting in their seats and talking. The noise in here hurts my head, but I’m so excited to get started that I smile through it. I regret drinking last night, but I’m glad I can’t remember much. I asked Jae what happened and she just shrugged, obviously hiding something from me for my own benefit. I let her and ignored it.

I see four seats in a row and go to grab them, knowing Sunggyu and Woohyun will be there soon. Jae and I put our bags down in the seats and then go to introduce ourselves to people. We meet the director, the director’s assistant, the set manager, the actor manager, and a bunch of other people with jobs I can’t name. As I ask the usual questions, how long have you been doing your job, what do you do; I realize that everyone’s very experienced.

“Why did you choose all inexperienced actors?” I ask one of the people I recognized as one of the people at the long table. She smiles at me.

“You were the best choice,” she explains. “We’d rather have the perfect fit and have to teach you some things then having an experienced actor who doesn’t fit as well.”

“We’ll work very hard to not give you so much trouble,” Jae says and she laughs.

“I’m glad you have a good attitude,” she tells us. I hear Woohyun’s laugh and see him and Sunggyu entering the room. I excuse us and we go to meet them.

“How are you feeling?” Jae asks Sunggyu and he smiles weakly at her concerned question.

“I’m fine,” he reaches over to mess her hair and steps past us. “Where are we sitting?” He asks me and I point to our seats. He takes the end seat, sighing and looking around the room. I look at Woohyun hoping he understands my questioning expression. He meets my eyes and shrugs. He takes the seat next to Sunggyu and, giving Jae an apologetic look, I take the one next to him.

“We’ll get started passing out the scripts now,” the director says and a couple members of the staff take stacks of them out of boxes, passing them out to everyone sitting at the long table. I feel bad for them, watching them bow their heads every time a script leaves their hand. So I smile and thank the small woman who hands me mine and flick Woohyun in the leg as hard as I can when he just nods at her.

“You should be nicer,” I tell him and he chuckles at me.

“You’re telling me?” he teases, looking down at my hand that forgot to leave his leg. I glare at him and then start looking through my script.

“I know this is the first time you’ve read the script, so we won’t criticize you if you mess up a little,” the director says, looking over at Jae and I. I feel a little insulted, but then I realize they all know Korean isn’t our first language so I smile at him thankfully. Our accents are perfect by now because of our constant training, but as much as I wished otherwise, I was visibly not Korean. “I’ll read all of the director’s notes,” he continues, “So everyone else can focus on understanding your character and his or her relationship with the other characters.” We all nod and listen as he describes the opening of the movie. It’s set in Seoul and starts with the two main characters, SangMin and DaeHyo, waking up at the same time and starting their completely different life styles. “SangMin has a lady friend in his room and goes to tell her to get out before he leaves for work,” the director reads, looking up at Woohyun for his first line.

“Ya,” Woohyun reads, “How long are you going to stay here?” his serious and bored tone, almost makes me laugh out loud, but he’s playing the character exactly how he should.

“The woman lying in his bed doesn’t say anything so SangMin shrugs and leaves for work,” the director narrates. “DaeHyo gets up early, running in the park, waving to the children at the daycare and picking up his usual morning coffee from his favorite café on his way to work. SangMin drives his expensive car to work and DaeHyo walks,” he continues to read through the notes until they both reach work.

“Hello YeonAh, did you miss me all night long?” Woohyun reads, his voice making me shiver. He sounds just how I imagined the ladies man SangMin. But it’s Woohyun, I think; He’s too cute for that. Wait, I blink, he’s not cute. I look back down at my script; I’m having a hard enough time convincing myself without looking at him when I read the next line on the page and wait for someone to say it aloud.

“Good morning, Boss,” says a familiar female voice down the table from us. I turn to look and my eyes widen when I see Krystal with her face turned to the script in her lap. I can’t say what I think about her being in this movie with us. Jae and I had always been wildly envious of her, but meeting her yesterday I found that she’s kind of normal. Besides the fact that she’s gorgeous anyway. “You have a meeting with sales at 10 and you have to check over the reports that I finished last night before I turn them in tonight. Also, you have to attend the-”

“Ya, YeonAh,” Woohyun says cutting her off perfectly, with a small exasperated laugh. “I just got here.” He’s pretty good, I look back up at him for a moment. Ok maybe it’s not a moment. But eventually I look down.

The reading continues for a couple hours with small breaks in between scenes, in which we all talk about the funny lines or how to say them better. Sunggyu seems a little out of it, he never stays involved with the conversation for long, but he’s probably just tired or something. We complete the scenes that introduce SangMin and DaeHyo’s completely opposite life styles. Jae’s character doesn’t get introduced yet, but we get through the scene in which the guys meet me.

“Both of the men see KyuYa standing on the bridge,” the director has been reading the most in these first few scenes; his voice is deep and calm and it’s pleasant to listen to. “She’s walking along the railing dangerously and the men pass each other in their cars, both eyes wide as she jumps. Their cars swerve and they hit each other. KyuYa, hearing the commotion from the side of the bridge, jumps back up to see what happened. She knows it’s her fault and runs out to the cars.”

“Hello?” I call out, feeling a little stupid. “Oh my gosh, are you ok?”

“She finds that both the men are dead.”

“This is all my fault,” I moan.

“She realizes something and begins to start a ritual,” the director continues, “after its finished, the men’s chest start moving with breath and the screen fades out with KyuYa rejoicing and ambulances rushing to the scene.” The director sighs and folds his script, placing it on the table in front of him. “We’re stopping here today. I look forward to seeing you all tomorrow. Good work today.” We all clap for him, thank him and rise from our chairs, stretching and groaning from the stiffness.

“I wonder what that rituals going to be like,” Woohyun says, raising an eyebrow at me. I can’t help but shiver at his subtly suggestive voice. Or maybe it’s my imagination.  “If you screw up I’ll probably laugh even though I’m supposed to be dead.” I glare at him and swat him with my script.

“I’ll probably end up laughing a lot,” Jae confesses, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “It was hard enough calling Sunggyu ‘Oppa’ the other day without laughing.”

“You and I will both have to get used to it, Mak-Jae,” Sunggyu says, sounding tired.

“Still hung over?” I ask him, laughing and Sunggyu shrugs.

“Speaking of last night,” Woohyun says, his tone of voice makes me regret bringing it up even though he hasn’t said anything yet, “Do you remember it?” he asks me, as we go through the door way and outside. I shake my head at him and he laughs, throwing his head.

“Woohyun, don’t,” Jae groans and warns him, but she sounds like she knows it won’t help.

“I’m glad you’ve been teaching us English,” Woohyun laughs, ignoring her and turning his teasing gaze on me. “Without you, I never would have been able to understand what you told me last night.” His words make my face burn and I still don’t remember anything. I look around, hoping no one heard what he just said; it could sound bad to anyone passing by. My mind is reeling. What could I have said to him?

“Hyung,” Sunggyu says, grabbing his shoulder and pointing to the van idling at the curb. Woohyun looks at it and then takes a step toward me. I flinch back as he nears me, biting my lip. Too close, I think as his mouth nears my ear.

“I’m pretty sure you said that my kiss was better than Minho’s,” he whispers, the smile and gloating both clear in his voice. “And that you wanted me.” I jump back from him, the words making the close distance unbearable. I have no idea what to do since I don’t remember it at all, so I’m sure my face looks like a mix between confusion, hatred, embarrassment and shock. Woohyun laughs once more at my face, before jogging to the van and jumping inside after Sunggyu.

“What did he just say?” Jae asks, appearing at my side. I shake my head at her, not wanting to repeat it out loud, ever in my life. Because it was true. Oh my god, it was true.

“Saela!” Unnie’s voice shocks through my mind, and Jae and I turn to see her farther down the street waiting for us. We walk towards her, slide into our seats and Jae assumes her usual position. She cast curious glances at me from time to time over her guitar, but I stare out the window blankly unable to force the blush from my face and the nervous tingle out of my hands. He’s right, I think over and over again, repeatedly trying to think about other things. Anything but his laugh or his voice or his smirks. When we arrive at the dance studio, I jump out and hurry Jae up behind me. I want to start right away.

We get through so many of our dances, and I put all of my energy into every one. Forcing my mind to think about only moving my body how I want it to feels safer than letting it wander to what I really want. I also force myself to act normal again, messing around and joking with Jae as we screw up the same parts. As Jae and I lay on the wooden floor staring up at the ceiling after it’s over, Jae turns her head to look at me.

“Are you alright?” she asks, I smile and close my eyes.

“Yep,” I nod, stretch and sit up; grabbing my stuff to go. “I’m great,” I assure her again before we turn off the lights behind us. Glancing back, I’m reassured by those glow in the dark stars and shut the door behind me. I assume my role of “feeling great” in the van and continue with it until I focus until my head pounds in Korean lessons. I relax in piano, music is much easier than Korean, and feel renewed when I breathe in the night air outside. It’s late but I love it outside in the dark. I put my bag down and walk around while I wait for Jae to be finished. There aren’t many stars, but I’ve always thought the deep darkness of the night sky would be prettier with just the moon. I hear my phone in my bag and groan when I have to retrieve it from the depths of the fabric. Things always hide from me in that bag. I pull it out, and groan again. The message is from Woohyun. Before I have time to actually think about what I’m doing, I open the message.

“Did you know our characters fall in love?” It says with a bunch of keke’s after it. I drop my hand with my phone in it to my side for a second, rubbing my face exhaustedly and trying to keep my mind from wandering to any possible scenes in this movie.

“Of course they do,” I type, but then delete it.

“You just figured that out now?” I decide to ask. Then as a afterthought, I add “Stupid.” It makes me feel a little better to look at what I think I am. Then I shove my phone back inside the black hole of a bag on the ground, hoping it swallows it up for good. The arrival of Jae and Unnie saves me from having to think about it too much and I go home, talking to them to distract myself. I actually become focused on the conversation when Jae’s voice changes.

“Hey, Saela,” she says, fidgeting with her phone in her lap. Unnie reaches forward on the dash to turn down the music, we both feel like it’s appropriate. Woohyun’s gone from my mind at her tone. “Did Sunggyu seem weird today?” she asks, only glancing up at me for a second before diverting her eyes again.

“He seemed not talkative or smiley,” I shrug, “but he was probably hung over.”

“It seems like he’s becoming annoyed or something,” the phone in her lap stops moving and she looks up at me with a sad expression. “And he keeps calling me his little sister.”

“Well you are now,” I laugh at her, “Maybe he’s just trying to get into his role. I doubt he’s annoyed with you,” I reassure her, but she’s still making a concerned face. “He still messed up your hair the same way,” I point out, a smile twitching at . “He’ll be better tomorrow,” I tell her, putting my arm around her when we get out of the van and head inside. She smiles at me, and I know I’ve reassured her enough for now. We get ready for bed, both of us ready to sleep when we turn off the lights. I’m almost asleep when Jae turns her head towards me. I have to open my eyes a crack and see what she wants.

“You know that you and Woohyun fall in love right,” she whispers, gently like it’ll hurt me if she says it out loud. I smile at her, closing my eyes again.

“I know,” I tell her.

“Fighting,” she says sleepily, rolling over. I laugh at her gesture of encouragement, but I’m grateful. I think that I’ll really need it. Because before I can fall asleep, Woohyun’s back in my head. Laughing and kissing me and keeping me up until I’m physically too tired to resist the dreams the envelope me.

“KyuYa sits on the edge of DaeHyo’s hospital bed,” the director’s calm voice welcomes me back into the mindset of reading through the script. I’d feel completely relaxed if Woohyun’s chair wasn’t so close to me today. Whenever he moves, his leg brushes mine and I’ve been frozen since he sat down next to me. Although he doesn’t seem to notice. “DaeHyo’s eyes open, but we hear SangMin’s voice.”

“What happened?” Sunggyu says, since it’s his body in this part. “Who are you?”

“KyuYa approaches him cautiously, starring at him,” My name has started to jump out to me, just like my Korean name did after I adopted it and like my English name always did.

“What’s your name?” I ask him, looking at him like I’ve never met him before.

“Sa SangMin,” he says confidently, staring back at me.

“Are you sure?” I ask with a strange facial expression, a few people laughing. This scene is pretty funny.

“KyuYa pokes and prods SangMin against his protesting,” I reach over to grab a handful of hair on Woohyun’s head; shaking it a little and then poking his temple. I do it for the laughs, but I also do it to punish Woohyun for making me freeze all morning. The tingles in my hands are forced away when I decide they should be.

“You’re right,” I frown at him, knowing that since I can touch him,

“What are you doing?” he asks, moving back away from me. The notes say I have to keep holding onto him to be able to see him so I keep a hold on his arm. “I know I’m handsome, but most women at least tell me their names before they throw themselves at me.” I laugh out loud, even though it doesn’t say it in the script. I feel like it’s necessary. Wow, I think, this role is perfect for him. I’m grateful that when I touch him I can see the soul inside instead of the body so that I won’t have to do romantic things with Sunggyu. I’ll just always have to be touching Woohyun. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with myself when we actually film this.

“You really haven’t noticed yet?” I ask, poking him in the chest and grabbing his hand to hold it in front of his face. “You’re not you!” It’s starting to hurt my brain with all this switching back and forth between Sunggyu and Woohyun. It’s even more confusing since the script has both names written next to the lines and we have to decipher who’s talking by figuring out if I’m touching him or not. This movie is really complicated; KyuYa is already dead so she can see the souls in people if she touches them. So after the men switch, she attaches something to them so she can see them as who they are but no one else can. I think it’ll make more sense when I finally watch the movie after it’s all finished. The director assured me before we started filming that I’d only have to do romantic things with Woohyun. If he wasn’t such a nice man, I would have thrown a fit.

“SangMin looks down at himself for the first time and jumps out of the hospital bed, looking furiously around the room for a mirror,” Woohyun jumps out of his chair, running around the table and standing in front of a blank wall. “KyuYa follow him into the bathroom where he stares at himself.” I look at the director, and he smiles encouragingly at me. I stand up and flit over to Woohyun who’s continuing to stare in silent shock at the wall.

“What is this?” Woohyun yells when I reach him. “How am I inside someone else’s body?”

“About that,” I say, clasping my hands behind me and rocking back and forth on my feet. “When you died, I brought you back and you got switched.” I say it quickly and then smile at the end.

“I died?” he asks me, we’ve abandoned our scripts a little, “I’m dead?!”

“You were dead,” I correct him, “Now you’re alive. But you are also now Beom DaeHyo.”

“I’m Beom DaeHyo?” he looks at me, his eyes wide and furious.

“Nice to meet you, DaeHyo,” I stick my hand out at him, smiling amiably.  “My name is KyuYa.” Woohyun stares at my hand, fury spreading through his body.

“Switch me back!” he screams, “Right now!” He reaches out and shakes my shoulders violently. It doesn’t say anything in the script about him attacking me, but it feels right. And sends electricity through me. But that’s not important.

“Can’t,” I smile at him brightly. “For now you’re stuck like that. But cheer up. DaeHyo is stuck in your body too.”

“Stuck?” he laughs incredulously. “It’s probably a dream come true for him! Did you see how attractive I am?” he pauses as the staff laughs. I hear Sunggyu laughing in disbelief since we are talking about his body in this part.

“Was,” I correct him innocently. Woohyun groans.

“I want out of this unattractive thing right now.” He turns back to the mirror to survey his new body again. “Doesn’t this guy wash his hair?” he asks me, pulling at his own dark wavy hair and I shrug, appearing unconcerned with his physical appearance. Woohyun pulls up his shirt a bit, exposing his abs and I can feel my eyes widen. “He doesn’t even have good abs,” Woohyun moans, and turns to face me. “Did you see this?” I can’t do anything but stare at him and I feel my face getting redder with every millisecond he stares back at me.

“Yes,” I nod, my character gone for the moment. I shake my head. “Ya!” I yell suddenly, discarding my character completely now since Woohyun has definitely become himself again. The whole staff is laughing now, and a lot of the women are pointing at him. Since I can’t move my gaze, I reach out my hand and yank down his shirt for him. “Don’t do that!” I reach up to hit him on the head and he laughs at me. He raises his eyebrows at me innocently, but I know what he really wants, and the room starts to clap.

“Good,” the director laughs, “I’m glad you two are comfortable with each other.” The people slowly quiet and he stand up from his chair, seeming grateful for the movement. “I’d like to run the rest of the scenes today on our feet,” he announces and everyone stands up. “I also encourage to you to add what you see fit to the script,” he adds. “Let’s start this scene again.” We nod and begin again, this time moving throughout the scene. It feels better to be standing; it helps everyone get their voices right too. We get through three or four more scenes and get past the part when DaeHyo finally wakes up and I bring him to meet SangMin. Jae makes her entrance in this scene since we’re at his family’s house. She chokes on calling Sunggyu Oppa a couple times, but pulls off the innocent little sister role very well. Then we move farther into the story line, the guys switching roles and when we finish, the director comes over to speak to us four together.

“Good work today,” he says and we all bow, all of us synchronized. “You all see each other often right?” he asks and Woohyun responds right away.

“Yes, we’re all very close,” he puts an arm around my shoulder to prove it, and I smile through the shock. I won’t react. Because I don’t even care. Right?

“Good, good,” he nods, “Then I want you to be in your characters when you’re with each other. I know it’s strange for you to see your friends in new ways, so this will help you. I’m not asking you to live as your roles from now on, just when you’re with each other as a group.”

“Do you want us to keep the same relationships we have in the beginning of the movie?” I ask, already wanting to throw Woohyun’s arm off of me and run away. I shift under the weight, it’s not physically heavy, but his touch is killing me.

“I want you to experiment with them all,” the director looks at me seriously and my heart does a flip someone where in between my throat and my stomach. Or maybe it’s in both places now, I can’t tell. “Well good luck. I’ll see you tomorrow. Rest well because we’ll be finishing tomorrow.” We bow as he leaves, Woohyun finally releasing me from his clutches. I step away immediately, pretending to stretch. Woohyun says something in Sunggyu’s ear, laughing loudly afterward and Sunggyu turns away from my suspicious eyes, laughing as well. Jae’s phone rings in her pocket and she answers it quickly. Her face turns serious and she tell me silently that she’s going outside.

“So what relationship level should we try first?” Woohyun laughs at me, moving his hands to brush my face and I glare at him. It’s my only defense because other than that I can’t move. He points accusingly at me. “KyuYa is much bubblier than that,” he tells me, “She’d probably giggle and then say something foolish.” I smile at him as bubbly as I can get it and put my hands under my chin.

“And SangMin would probably be annoyed with it,” I remind him in a cute voice.

“You’re right,” he agrees and looks at Sunggyu. “Ya, she’s annoying. Tell her to leave.” My mouth drops open and Sunggyu cracks up before gaining his own character.

“SangMin wants you to leave,” he says with a straight face. DaeHyo is reserved and quiet, so it’s strange that Sunggyu, who smiles a lot, has taken on a somber face.

“Ok,” I smile at him and stick my tongue out at Woohyun. “Annyeong!” I wave cutely before I leave to go find Jae.

“I was kidding!” I hear Woohyun laughing from behind me and I pretend not to hear him. I go outside, anxious to get away from him before he changes relationship status on me. I shudder at the thought of when he decides to experiment, shoving the door open with extra unneeded strength just to get out the memory. I find Jae standing outside and jog over to her as she hangs up the phone.

“Choreographer Unnie got into an accident,” she tells me in English, her face showing me all of her anxiousness.

“Is she ok?” I ask her, the sudden flood of worry moving me to her side.

“She’s in the hospital,” Jae explains, “But Unnie says that she will be fine since she made it out of surgery.”

“Thank goodness,” I sigh, the flood receding as soon as it had crashed through my system. “So now what are we going to do?” I ask and Jae frowns at me.

“Unnie decided to fill our schedule with variety shows,” Jae says, almost groaning. I laugh lightly, not sure how to react to Unnie’s quick thinking. “She’s coming to get us now. The first one is tonight.” Unnie honks from the curb, she got here quickly. I accept my fate, put my arm around Jae and walk her to the car, telling her that it’s going to be fine. I try to convince myself too, but the memories and the irritation in my skin doesn’t leave me. 

        So the movie is starting!!! And Saela's fighting hard in her denial!!! And Sunggyu may or may not be acting strange with Jae!!! Haha I'll be doing a double update tonight some time because I really can't hold back this next chapter. I just can't

I was thinking of adding some YaDong or MyungYeol.... Comment if you think I should or shouldn't!!! Cause I really can't make up my mind!!!