Watched: Grace and Frankie

      August 20th, 2010

August 20th, 2010

"I can't believe I got this drama part," Echo repeated for the umpteenth time that day.

"You do realize we're mere minutes from the first recording, right?" humor laced Hajoon's voice as he drove the van to the first filming spot of the day.

Before Echo could respond her phone dinged, opening it she smiled at the text message she saw.

Congratulations on your first lead role! Have fun and do a good job! Hwaiting Echo-ah!!

- Park Shinhye

Ever since You're Beautiful ended the co-stars have only texted once in a blue moon to each other, never seeing the other in person since the show ended. It made the corners of Echo's lips twitch upwards at the simple caring action.

After typing back a thank you the van pulled to a stop. Echo looked up with innocent eyes, taking in the scenery around her: a regular sized school building with numerous staff members running around.

She jumped out of the van, slowly following her manager to see the producer and director. She uncomfortably pulled at the short school girl skirt once she felt unwanted eyes on her.

"Ah, Jung Echo, great timing!"

"Hello, Hwang Inroi-nim, Kim Dohyung-nim and Song Byungjoon-nim," Echo gave an appropriate ninety degree bow, her bright idol smile on her face. "I'm very happy to be working together!"

"As long as you keep that attitude, everything will work out well," Hwang Inroi, one of the two directors, smiled, the wrinkles in his face deepening with the action.

"Echo-ah, how well have you been preparing your lines?" Song Byungjoon, the producer, questioned, his hands behind his back as his eyes unsubtly took in the female before him.

Directly next to her, Echo felt Hajoon stiffen. She mentally agreed with her manager that she didn't like how forward his wording was, but she couldn't say anything against it. "Whenever I have free time I've been practicing, I feel confident."

Before any of the men could further question her, her costar popped up. Kim Hyunjoong bowed to the three men, but not as deeply as the female idol had previously. When he started talking, and Hajoon placed a large hand on her shoulder, Echo took that as her cue to leave.

"You think you girls could go somewhere that you aren't looked at like you're pieces of meat," Hajoon lowly growled as they walked away.

Echo didn't speak her mind, but silently agreed.

"I wasn't expecting a reply," Echo nervously bit her lip, clutching the folded paper in two hands. "Thanks." Her eyes swiftly jumped from her two friends back to Kim Hyunjoong in front of her. "Should I read it now? Right here?"

He simply nodded, his voice stone cold.

With a winning smile Echo unfolded the paper, her face dropping once she saw all the red marks on the love letter. Before she could say anything a pale hand shot out of nowhere and grabbed the paper from her.

"Hey, Hong Jangmi, you better give that back!" one of Echo's friends called out.

The pretty girl wasn't fazed, instead she continued to read the letter with a confused expression. "What is this? Is this a love letter to Seungjo-oppa?"

Echo's two friends jumped up, trying to grab the letter out of her thin hands.

"Aren't you going to stop this?!"

"Oh my! He fixed her grammar mistakes!" Jangmi laughed, proudly showing the letter to those around her. "It's not a love letter. It's an exam paper! An exam! Score D-!" After she finished laughing she read out, "'Truthfully I don't call you Seungjo, I call you the 'Spirit of the Forest'."

Echo scrunched up her face, trying to look anywhere but at people's faces, which was difficult since they gathered a large crowd. "Oh my god, she called him a Spirit of the Forest!"

"What the hell are you doing?!" Bong Joongu yelled from the staircase. He waltzed over with his posse, effortlessly grabbing the letter from the shorter girl.

"I shouldn't really have gone to such an extent…" Hyunjoong trailed off, his eyes focusing on Echo's deflated form. "But."

"But what?" one of Echo's friends growled out.

"I absolutely hate stupid girls."

Echo's face could simply be called 'devastated'. She didn't focus on the rest of the scene, knowing she had no more lines, and instead focused on her face and body language. She always found it difficult to get her eyes to water, but today it came more naturally. Probably because she felt way too much second hand embarrassment right now.

"Cut! Perfect, just perfect!" the director called out, widely grinning. "We can have an early lunch today!"

Echo gratefully thanked everyone before making her way over to her manager, except she was unexpectedly stopped by the producer.

"Echo-ah, that was beautiful today!"

The female idol felt a shiver roll down her spine, her eyes nervously flickering towards her manager (who was unhelpfully talking to one of the stylists thus ignoring Echo's pleading looks). "Thank you, Song-nim."

"Call me Byungjoon-oppa," he grinned, his hands twisting behind his back.

Echo's eyes momentarily widened, before her face melted into indifference. Her mind working within seconds on how to reply and not seem rude. "Ah, I don't feel comfortable calling my producer that, Song-nim." She purposely amped up her idol voice, slow, soft and low.

"But we should become close, shouldn't we? You are my drama's leading lady."

The chill up her spine became needles in her back.

"Echo-ssi, do you mind going over some lines with me?" Hyunjoong, to Echo's great relief, popped up next to the actress, holding his script in hand. "I'm still not that sure on how to present them and would really appreciate the help - oh, Song-nim was I interrupting?"

"Not at all Hyunjoong-ah," although the producers face was tight. "Please, practice as much as you need," he said before walking away.

"Thank you," Echo breathlessly spoke, she felt her face reddening.

"No problem, I'm assuming no one warned you about him?" his voice was even and blunt.

The SNSD member shook her head, wondering what he could mean.

"He's a huge ert, I had a feeling you didn't know since it’s strange for a leading actress not to have slept with him."

Echo felt her skin prickle. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Hyunjoong blinked owlishly at her. "Well, you're from SM. They don't need to have their actresses doing extra things behind the scenes to get roles."

"I'm totally not offended or anything by that, but what makes you think SM is above that?"

"It's like Disney out 2006 Hannah Montana," the SS501 member shrugged, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "SM doesn't need to resort to such dirty tactics. They can even refute anything ual in scripts and get away with it."

Echo remained quiet as she processed what she was being told. Yes, she's been in the industry for a few years now, but that doesn't mean she knows every nook and cranny. There were numerous rumors about the darker side of the industry, but the SNSD members have remained sheltered regarding it. It didn't help that none of them had friends from small companies.

"Um, do you really need help with lines?"

Hyunjoong smiled. "No, just saw a lady in distress."

The brunette watched the man turn his back on her and walk towards the food table, instead of following she grabbed her Beginner's Japanese book and began studying while boredly chewing on some raw carrots.

"Taeyeon wants to talk to you," Hajoon handed his phone over to Echo, who was sitting in the passenger seat.

She took the phone, holding it up to her ear. "Hello?"

"Echo-ah, where are you?"

She leaned her head all the way back on the seat. "I'm in the van with the manager."

"Did you eat yet?"

"No."

"Do you want to come out with me and my mom? She's in town by herself and she really wants to try this Chinese place, they take your blood pressure and stuff and you get food for whatever ails you."

Echo bit the tip of her tongue, silently thinking the offer over. Every time she heard the word 'mom' she felt a small tug at her heart, a feeling she was sure she would never get rid of (time can't heal everything). Would it be awkward? She didn't want to get in between Taeyeon and her mother's precious alone time.

"Are you sure?"

"Definitely!"

"If I wouldn't be intruding I would love to."

Echo was nervous when Hajoon pulled the van to a stop in front of the Chinese restaurant. Why? She wasn't sure.

When she walked in she was practically whisked away by the hostess to a private room that contained Taeyeon and her mother.

Upon seeing her wide-eyed look the SNSD leader laughed, beckoning her over while giving her a hug before her mother got up, giving the tall girl a tight, motherly hug. "Echo-ah look at you, you're so tall and pretty!"

"Thank you, mother," without thinking the formal word slipped out. She noticed Taeyeon's eyebrow twitch in surprise at the title. All of the members call each other's parents with 'mother' and 'father', it was just so natural to do Echo did it without thinking. To her greater surprise, she felt no guilt for her passed on mother.

"Sit down, sit down, you need to eat! Are you sure those people are feeding you properly?" Taeyeon's mother ushered Echo over to her seat. They were situated at a small round table, Echo slinging her purse on the back of her dark wood chair.

A woman came in to pour tea in each of their small, porcelain cups before leaving.

"I heard you're recording a drama, what's it called? Who's in it?" Taeyeon's mother eagerly questioned.

"Mom!" Taeyeon whined, worried if Echo really wants to talk about work in this setting.

"It's fine," Echo assured her leader, who fell back into her chair. "It's called 'Mischievous Kiss' and I'm acting along Kim Hyunjoong."

Stars appeared in the older woman's eyes. "Oh my! How is he in real life? Is he just as handsome as on TV?"

Echo paused, tapping her chin in thought. "I guess, I wasn't really focused on his looks as we were acting."

Taeyeon snorted. "Leave it to you not to pay attention to all the good eye candy around you."

The youngest girl chuckled. "Maybe I'll pay more attention during the next recording."

"Can you get an autograph for me?" Taeyeon's mom asked, clearly excited.

"MOM!"

The brunette laughed at the mother-daughter pairs antics.

"Okay, okay, no more talk about work I promise," the woman brought two closed fingers up to her face and ran them across her lips to signify her silence on the subject. "How about college? Taeyeonnie still isn't looking, what about you?"

Taeyeon gave her mom a stern look at the question, but she was ignored.

"Kind of? I know when I go I want to go into business or marketing."

Taeyeon's mom's face grew surprised, even Taeyeon gave her member a surprised look. Echo hadn't spoken to any of the members about her thoughts on college. "Wow, those majors are so different than idols usually do. Why aren’t you going for filming or music degrees?"

"I want to think of the future, not the immediate future, but in at least ten years time. I know I can't be singing and acting all my life," she honestly said. "Korea's very finicky with what they are seeing, I don't know how much longer my own popularity will last me."

Taeyeon's mom nodded, pride in her eyes. "That's a very good goal."

"Oh, yeah, I almost forgot to tell you," Echo turned to Taeyeon. "Arianna has a stage name."

The leader perked up at the news. "Tell me!"

"Wait I have to check the text, the letters mean something, it's really cute," she smiled, pulling out her old flip phone to look back at her texts.

"When are you going to get a new phone?" the leader questioned, remembering the phone from when Echo first moved to Korea six years ago.

"When this one breaks," she shrugged, finding the text. "Okay so her name is 'Hanna' the first 'H' stands for Hyoju/Hannah, the first 'A' is for Allison, the first 'N' is for New York, she won't tell me what the second 'N' is for, and the last 'A' is for Arianna."

"That's so sweet!" Taeyeon's mom gushed.

"I didn’t know she had something like that in her," Taeyeon reached for the phone to see the text for herself, Echo easily handing it over.

"I was just as surprised! At first she wanted to combine her own name with mom's or something like that, but they were really weird. She just took mom's American name and took out the last 'H'."

"When are they making the announcement?"

"I think in a few weeks."

Echo deserves more acting roles!

I think I see Echo as more of an actress than Yoona in SNSD.

Idols she stay idols, actors should stay actors.

MY STATS CLASS IS OVERRRRRR!!!!

The link to the first episode of Playful Kiss.