The first time Han Seo-jin watched her own words die, they were leaving someone else's mouth.
They emerged perfectly lit, framed in soft-focus, dressed in a pastel blouse that cost more than Seo-jin's monthly rent. They floated out on a cloud of studio fog and manufactured longing, gently cupped in the hands of a camera that adored the face saying them and had never once noticed the one who wrote them.
"Cut! Beautiful, Min-ah-ya. That was it," Director Kang called, clapping his hands together like a man who believed noise could substitute for conviction. "We move on."
The crew exhaled as one. The assistant director dropped his arm from the slate. Lighting techs shuffled, grips relaxed, someone hit play on a pop song that Seo-jin hated on principle.
Next to the monitor, Park Min-ah turned, blinking rapidly as if emerging from deep emotional waters rather than a scene that had taken six takes because she kept forgetting where to look.
"How was it?" Min-ah asked, eyes wide, lips forming a careful, pretty pout. She wasn't talking to Kang, who was already on his phone, fingers flying. She was looking just past him, where Seo-jin hovered, half-hidden behind the script binder pressed to her chest like a shield.
Seo-jin adjusted her glasses up the bridge of her nose, even though they were fake and the smudge on the left lens was just habit by now. Her hoodie—oversized, charcoal gray, indistinguishable from the last three she'd worn—hung off her shoulders, swallowing her frame.
"It was good," Seo-jin said. The lie sat flat on her tongue. "We can move on."
"Really? The tears looked natural, right?" Min-ah pressed, stepping closer, her whisper urgent. Her perfume rolled over Seo-jin in a wave—flowers and sugar and something sharp underneath, like fresh-cut green stems.
You didn't cry, Seo-jin thought. The eye-drops did.
"You were convincing," she said instead, the words neat and polite, smoothed down like the corners of a drafted scene. "Just remember to look at him when you say the last line. Not past him."
Min-ah's shoulders relaxed. She gripped Seo-jin's forearm briefly, nails cool against the fabric. "See, this is why I need you nearby," she murmured. "You always see these things. You're like… a feelings translator."
A ghost, Seo-jin corrected silently. A ghost in comfortable cotton and cheap sneakers, haunting her own work.
She glanced across the set, where "him" was standing.
Li Feng stood a little apart from the chaos, as if the bright tape on the floor marked a border only he could see. He had that stillness about him that camera operators loved and crew members distrusted: the kind that made space around itself instead of asking for it.
An assistant was dabbing powder on his jaw, the brush faltering against his skin as he stayed focused on something in the distance, gaze intense and inward. The wardrobe noonas fussed with his collar. His manager leaned in occasionally to murmur something; Li Feng never once looked at him.
He was beautiful in a way that made people stupid, Seo-jin had observed. Casting directors forgave his temper. Directors forgave his demands. Executives forgave his refusals. The public forgave everything else.
He also refused to say half the lines she wrote for him, which prevented her from forming any extended sympathy.
"Han Writer-nim," a voice snapped at her elbow.
She turned. Director Kang was shorter than he seemed when he was raised on the scaffolding of deference. Up close, without a headset or megaphone, he looked precise and polished, his hairline sharp, his sneakers nearly as white as the teeth he flashed at clients.
"Adjust the dialogue in scene forty-three," he said, scrolling through something on his tablet without looking at her. "The sponsor wants their brand mentioned more naturally. Too many people online said it sounded like an ad."
"It is an ad," Seo-jin said mildly.
Kang's mouth thinned. "That's the reality of drama, Writer-nim. Make it poetic. That's your specialty, isn't it?" His tone warmed artificially. "Just do a version that sounds deep enough to trend on quote accounts."
He walked off before she could answer, already switching to his genial, ingratiating tone for the important men approaching—executives in tailored suits with sponsor badges on their lapels. Two of them; no, three. A cluster of wealth moving like a single organism.
One of them, the one whose tie bore the logo of their primary sponsoring conglomerate, laughed too loudly at something Kang said. His hair had the stiff, over-sprayed sheen of someone who paid people to pretend he still had all of it.
Behind them walked a woman who did not dress like a sponsor or a creative. Her suit was immaculate, not expensive, yet managed to look more authoritative than anyone else's clothing on set. A tablet rested against her forearm; her hair was scraped back into a neat bun so tight it made Seo-jin's scalp ache in sympathy.
Seo-jin watched the woman's eyes—cool, assessing, sharp enough to slice through pretense—scan the set with clinical interest.
New, she thought instantly. And dangerous.
They would have a name for her later; for now, the woman was simply another presence trying to monetize art.
"Is that the network's compliance officer?" someone whispered nearby.
"No, legal," another replied. "PR, maybe. They're ramping up; ratings were insane last night."
So that's what success looked like, in human form: an extra set of eyes making sure everyone stayed on their marks, not for the sake of the story, but the brand.
"Seo-jin-ah." Min-ah tugged at her sleeve again, oblivious. "Can you go over that hallway scene with me? The jealousy one. That long speech, you know? The one people loved yesterday."
Loved. Shared. Memed. Credited to the dazzling actress who had "worked so hard on her character."
Seo-jin slipped the binder open. Her handwriting covered the margins—afternoon storms of ink, words crowded together in shorthand. The official script, the one with the credited writer's name on the cover, lived in the producer's office. This was the not-real version. The assistant's copy. The Side B.
"'I don't want to own you,'" Seo-jin read quietly, finger tracing the line as Min-ah leaned in, lips moving along. "'I just want to be the place you return to when the world treats you like a prop.'"
Min-ah sighed. "So pretty. You're really wasted as an assistant, you know?" She smiled. "If I ever write a book, you'll ghostwrite it for me, right?"
Already did, she thought. Just not for you.
Across the set, movement caught her eye.
Li Feng had slipped away from the cluster of staff orbiting him. He moved unsupervised through cables and lighting stands, like water finding its path. No one stood in front of him—the air seemed to part.
He was heading toward the script cart.
Of course he was.
The first time she'd noticed his habit had been on day two, when Side B of episode one had gone missing. She'd spent half an hour accusing herself of carelessness before catching a glimpse of him between takes a day later, bent over the pages, brow furrowed, lips moving as he read her margin notes.
Now, she watched as he glanced over his shoulder once, twice, then, satisfied no one important was watching, reached casually for the binder labeled Ep. 7 – B.
Her binder.
Seo-jin snapped it shut.
Before he could touch it, she stepped forward, the weight of the script pulling her hand down, but not enough to stop her from sliding it off the cart and hugging it to her chest.
Li Feng's hand closed on empty air.
For a heartbeat, they faced each other: actor and ghostwriter, star and shadow, both caught out of character.
Up close, his expression was more severe than the posters made it seem. The camera loved to soften him; reality did not. His mouth had a permanent downward quirk, as if displeased was his default, but his eyes—
They surprised her. Not because they were beautiful; everyone already knew that. Because they were wary. And tired.
"Assistant Han," he said, identifying her by the lanyard at her neck, his Korean touched by a light, precise Beijing lilt. "I needed that."
"You have your own copy, Actor Li," Seo-jin replied, spine straightening involuntarily. "Side A is with your manager."
He glanced briefly toward where his manager was indeed clutching a pristine, unmarked script like a passport.
"That one is useless," he said simply. "Yours makes sense."
"I wasn't aware my private notes were part of your contract," she said. The sarcasm slipped out before she could strangle it.
His gaze sharpened. A flash of interest, quick and almost… amused?
"Your private notes," he repeated. "The ones that clarify the emotional arc, correct the timeline, and fix the continuity errors from the original draft? Those private notes?"
Min-ah shifted beside her. "Oh, those are so helpful," she interjected, oblivious to the tension. "She explains all the feelings so I don't look stupid."
"You never look stupid, Min-ah-ssi," he said automatically, not bothering to make the lie convincing. His attention stayed fixed on Seo-jin. "Lend it to me. I'll return it before the next setup."
"No," she said.
Around them, the set kept moving. Lights dimmed, chairs scraped, staff shouted. The world went on, unaware that this was the first time Han Seo-jin had refused him anything.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because," she said, fingers tightening around the binder. "Your improvisations aren't in here yet. I wouldn't want my notes to limit your… emotional honesty."
His lips pressed together. A muscle in his jaw jumped.
"You think I improvise because I like changing your words," he said quietly.
"You refuse to say them," she replied. "The effect is the same."
"The lines I refuse," he said, "are the ones that lie about people. That make them simpler than they are. The ones that sound like they were written by committee."
They were. Her job was to unsnarl those knots without anyone noticing.
"And the ones you accept?" she asked.
He held her gaze. For a moment, the noise of the set thinned around them.
"The ones with weight," he said. "The ones that hurt to say. Those feel like they were written by someone who understands too much."
Heat crawled up her neck, unwelcome and embarrassing.
"They're credited to Writer Choi," she said flatly. "You should compliment him, if you like them so much."
"I have met Writer Choi," Li Feng said. "His thoughts are… different." A diplomatic pause. "They don't match these."
"You're overestimating your ability to read people, Actor Li," she said. "That's my job."
A slow curve tugged at one corner of his mouth—not a smile, exactly, but an acknowledgment of the hit.
"Then read me," he said softly.
It was a challenge. It slipped between them like a blade wrapped in silk.
Seo-jin opened her mouth. Closed it. She had, of course. Read him. Observed the dryness in his eyes after retakes, the way he flinched—almost imperceptibly—whenever the word "idol" drifted too close to his name, the way he hoarded her notes like contraband.
But those observations lived in her journal, where they were safe.
"I don't do parlor tricks," she said. "If you want character notes, request them officially."
"I have," he said. "Three times. I was told the assistant wasn't authorized to consult with actors. Only the head writer." His gaze flicked briefly toward the office where Writer Choi sat, as often as possible, with the door shut and the blinds half-drawn. "Who never appeared."
"Because he's busy," she murmured.
"Because you're doing his work," Li Feng countered.
The words hung between them, bare and dangerous.
Across the room, a camera operator sneezed. The illusion snapped.
"Li Feng-ssi!" Director Kang's voice sliced through the air. "We're setting for the hospital room! Where are you?"
Without taking his eyes off her, Li Feng said, "I'll give it back before lunch. You have my word."
Seo-jin hesitated.
He reached—not for the binder, but for his back pocket. Pulled out a folded sheet of paper, edges softened by handling. The top corner bore her handwriting: Scene 32 – alt. confession.
On the reverse side, written in a different hand—fluid, slightly messy, Chinese characters looping into Korean, notes crowding the margins around hers.
He pressed it into her free hand.
"I've been answering you," he said quietly. "You just didn't know where to look."
Then, with a quick, light motion, he tugged the binder from her loosened grip and walked back toward the set, flipping it open as he went.
She stared down at the page in her hand.
Her own questions circled, the ones she'd scribbled for no one: Why does he smile here? Does he believe himself, or is it reflex? Is self-loathing louder than desire?
And beneath, his replies, written like counter-melodies: He smiles because the alternative is breaking. He believes enough to hurt. Self-loathing and desire are the same volume; the scene is about which one he turns the volume up on.
The world tilted, just a fraction.
Someone cleared their throat beside her.
The woman in the sharp suit had approached without a sound. Up close, she looked younger than Seo-jin had guessed, but her eyes ruined the illusion: too knowing, too measured.
"I'm Yoon Hye-rin," she said, slipping a business card into Seo-jin's line of sight. Crisis Management Department, it read neatly. Sunjin Media Group. "I'll be overseeing public image issues for the rest of the shoot."
Of course. A crisis manager for a show that wasn't even halfway through airing. The ratings must have been truly obscene.
"Han Seo-jin, assistant writer," she said, because habit made her fill silence with labels before anyone else did.
"I know," Hye-rin replied. "I read all the internal memos this morning."
Her gaze slid to the page still clutched in Seo-jin's hand, then to Li Feng, now in position under the lights, script open, eyes scanning.
"You might want to be careful about where you leave your thoughts, Ms. Han," Hye-rin said pleasantly. "In a hit like this, even notes can become… evidence."
"Evidence of what?" Seo-jin asked, her voice thin.
"Genius," Hye-rin said lightly. "Or sabotage. It depends who's telling the story."
She smiled then, the kind of smile that promised nothing and suggested catastrophe.
On the set, Director Kang called, "Action!"
Li Feng lifted his head, eyes suddenly alive with someone else's pain, someone else's longing. Yet somewhere inside the performance, there was a line that led back to her, invisible and taut, humming with unsaid things.
Seo-jin folded the annotated page carefully, tucking it into the inner pocket of her hoodie, close to her heart.
Outside the soundstage, the world was falling in love with a drama that believed it was about a bright, struggling actress and a cynical top star finding each other in the spotlight.
Inside, among cables and whispered notes and stolen margins, another story had already begun.
One where truth had a price.
And everyone, she realized as Hye-rin moved away to greet the executives, was already calculating what they were willing to pay.