Whenever people look at a work of art, the first thing they do is imagine. What would it be like if I existed in that world? If it were me, I would've done this or that. Flying through the sky, waking up in space, meeting monsters they have never seen or even heard of before.
It would be the same regardless of genre.
Even when watching a simple romantic comedy drama, people project themselves onto the protagonist and imagine. That process amplifies the viewer's emotions and draws them even deeper into the story.
Then what if someone were to become the protagonist of an animation?
First, they would probably imagine what the world inside that animation looked like. It would be on a completely different level from a film or a drama. After all, animation is a world drawn in pictures.
But it still has characters, a protagonist, and a story.
It might feel strange to us, but to the protagonist of that animation, that world is reality itself. It is life. The animated world Kang Woojin was currently reading, experiencing, and seeing had truly existed.
Of course, it might have been a little special.
The sun in the sky, clouds drifting by and casting brief shadows, birds flying overhead, tightly packed high-rises, signboards plastered on buildings, cars racing through the streets, crowds of people crossing at the intersections. Everything looked distinctly different from the scenery Kang Woojin usually saw.
It was as if God had spilled paint by mistake.
The whole world seemed drenched in color. Yet no one here complained or found it odd. To them, this was completely normal. Even the people hurrying past Kang Woojin on the sidewalk had forgotten they were covered in color.
Even for Woojin, who had been confused at first—
"..."
His composure gradually settled.
The emotions of the role spread through his entire body. Maybe it was because the script was only fifty percent complete, so the distant buildings were blurry and more than half the characters' faces were obscured. But Woojin did not care. That was simply the state of his mind.
At this moment, there was only one thought in Kang Woojin's head.
'Let today pass quietly.'
'A quiet day is the best. Standing out only drags you into annoying trouble. Not too much, not too foolish. It's best to stay right in the middle.'
That was what he kept repeating to himself.
Then—
"What's with that guy? Doesn't he look kind of gloomy?"
"Hehe, really? Which school is he from?"
Two high school girls passing by Kang Woojin giggled. They too were painted in all sorts of colors, but their fluttering skirts somehow still looked natural. Woojin muttered indifferently to himself.
'I saw them, but I'll pretend I didn't.'
Their uniforms included jackets, and judging by the slight chill in the air, it seemed to be around autumn. The wind brushed against Kang Woojin's face. His bangs fluttered.
Is his hair long?
Just as Woojin casually started to step forward—
"Why are you standing there like an idiot? You're in the way."
A woman's voice came from behind him.
Japanese.
It had come out of nowhere, but it was a familiar voice. He had heard it far too many times. So often, in fact, that he was sick of it.
Kang Woojin slowly turned his head.
As he shifted, his current reflection appeared in the glass window of the shop beside him.
He was fairly tall, dressed top to bottom in a navy school uniform with a tie, carrying a matching bag over one shoulder. His black hair was messy enough to cover his eyes, and he wore awkwardly sized glasses. The glasses and messy hair were both part of a disguise, of course. They were meant to keep him from standing out.
The girl standing behind him spoke again.
"Idiot. What are you even doing here?"
Her eyes were large. Her irises were brown, almost the same shade as her hair, and there was a mole beneath one eye. She looked like a cartoon character too, but Kang Woojin only frowned at her indifferently.
"It's already a bad morning, and now I've run into the one person I really didn't want to see."
"Shut up. Move. You're blocking the way."
"There's plenty of space. You can just walk past me."
"I hate having to change directions because of you."
"People can't always do exactly what they want."
"Hmph."
The girl glanced at Woojin, then brushed past him, her long brown hair swaying as she went. A pleasant shampoo scent lingered faintly in the air.
This girl was Kang Woojin's childhood neighbor. No, now she was closer to an enemy. The farther away she got, the hazier both her figure and her color became.
It was probably one of animation's traits, but Woojin paid it no mind.
He pulled himself together again. He had to get to school.
Kang Woojin kept walking.
The scenery around him had definitely changed, yet it was strangely all over the place. The lines and colors of the buildings did not quite match, and people's movements were uneven. Even the puppy that brushed past his feet had no color at all.
And so Kang Woojin arrived at high school.
Until he fully settled into the classroom, he kept repeating the concept of peace to himself. Because of that, his presence in class was nearly nonexistent. He was nothing more than male student number one, the kind of person nobody paid attention to.
Of course, that was exactly what Kang Woojin wanted.
But the childhood friend he had run into that morning was different.
"Let's go to the snack shop! The snack shop!"
"Hehe, already?"
"Come with me, come with me!"
She was like a school celebrity. She was always surrounded by friends, probably because of her standout looks. But who cared? To Kang Woojin, she was just a sworn enemy.
He quietly melted into the noisy classroom and lay down at his desk. All he wanted was to preserve peace in his own life.
But that peace shattered the moment the teacher appeared.
"You all know, right? Starting next week, there'll be a two-day culture festival—"
The biggest event, or festival, of the school year.
An absolute headache that turned the whole school upside down.
Woojin raised his chin slightly and told himself he only had to sit through it this year too.
Then suddenly, that childhood-friend girl shot to her feet and shouted—
"Everyone! What about using him for this year's costume?"
Her index finger pointed toward Kang Woojin, who had been standing by the window as an unremarkable nobody.
Soon, all the classmates whose faces he could not even properly make out turned to look at him.
Woojin frowned as usual and muttered inwardly.
'Should I kill her?'
The highlight of the culture festival was the costume contest, where each class chose one student and dressed them up as a famous comic or manga character.
From that moment on, cracks began to appear in his peaceful life.
·
·
·
·
How much time had passed?
["Ending read of A: 1."]
As the robotic female voice rang in Kang Woojin's ears—
'Ah.'
His vision abruptly changed.
It was a parking lot.
In front of a large van.
Choi Sunggeon, with his hair in a ponytail, was explaining something.
"The fact that the draft for episode one is out means A10 Studio has already gone into production."
Woojin, who had been watching him in silence, slowly lowered his gaze. He looked at his own hands and clenched and unclenched them. Then he glanced down at his feet. After that, he lifted his head again and swept his eyes over Choi Sunggeon, the van behind him, and the parking lot around them.
It felt oddly awkward.
Kang Woojin's mind quickly cleared, but the animated world he had just come back from was startlingly vivid.
'Where exactly was I just now?'
That was what it felt like. As if he had gone to another world, completed every quest there, and returned to his original one.
In the end, whether it was animation or reality, both were real. But Woojin realized that what he felt now was a little different from the emotions he felt when acting in a film or drama role.
'It's like there's an extra dimension added on top. I don't know how to explain it.'
One thing was certain.
It was an emotion that only Kang Woojin, out of the entire world's population, could ever experience.
And—
'It's really interesting.'
Kang Woojin had no complaints about his current state.
Just then, Choi Sunggeon tilted his head.
"Hey, hey, Woojin. What are you doing? Are you listening to me?"
In an instant, Woojin put on a cold expression and nodded.
"Yes, sir."
"Hm. Anyway, if you skim through that animation, you'll understand. The original work is Boy Friend, but when they adapted Boy Friend, they stripped the story down."
Oh. So that was why the female lead looked oddly similar to Hwarin. It had been like that in the animation he just saw too. The background was different, but the basic theme of the script felt similar to Boy Friend.
Woojin asked calmly.
"Are they turning Boy Friend into an animation?"
"That's right. Judging by the progress, it looks like the discussions between Writer Choi and Netflix are already finished. Well, it's not exactly rare. In fact, it's more common for comics to be adapted into animation and then made into live-action. But there are cases like this too, where a live-action project gets adapted into animation or manga."
Then Choi Sunggeon handed the script back to Woojin and asked—
"What do you think? It's only the first episode draft, so it's rough, but did your usual instinct kick in?"
It actually had.
But since the completion level was low, it had only been rated D.
"I'm not sure."
Still, after experiencing it firsthand, Woojin thought the story itself was interesting. The core of it was simple: the male lead, who only wanted to live quietly, gradually had his real identity exposed, and his peaceful life became tangled up with the female lead, his childhood friend, and then more and more people after that.
Naturally, the center of it all was the romantic comedy between the male and female leads.
For whatever reason, Choi Sunggeon asked while returning the script to him—
"I can fully understand why A10 Studio wants you as the voice actor. Your popularity in Japan, your Japanese skills, and probably the novelty factor too. What do you want to do? The production company wants to meet, but if you're not interested, just turn them down."
Kang Woojin answered simply.
"I think I can attend the meeting."
That decision came purely out of one thing.
Fun.
──────────
The next morning, the 11th, at a large action school in Seoul.
Many martial arts staff members were moving around busily. Gray mats covered the floor, and various types of equipment had been set up in different sections. Some areas had ropes hanging from the ceiling, while others had wooden swords standing upright.
Right in the middle of it all stood PD Song Manwoo, wearing a light padded jacket, his arms crossed and his expression serious.
"Hm."
To be specific, the entire action and production team of Beneficial Evil had gathered there. At that very moment, Song Manwoo was checking the action choreography planned by the martial arts team.
"Sit!"
"Heuk!"
"Eup!"
The atmosphere was tense, but orderly.
The martial arts director and his team were reviewing the continuity of the planned action sequence. The scene stretched across episodes one and two, and inside the training hall several members of the martial arts team were already running through the choreography.
The selection system at the action school was simple.
The entire martial arts team first memorized the sequence the director had planned, and then the member with the best form was chosen.
Experience, of course, was an important factor.
Even so, as Song Manwoo watched the martial arts team, he slowly nodded. He looked fairly satisfied.
'Not bad.'
Since Song Manwoo had been directing action for a long time, he was naturally watching with a somewhat critical eye, but the continuity the martial arts director had put together was more than solid enough.
The action felt realistic, yet flashy.
Every director has a different preference when it comes to action.
Some pursue the thrill of it, some the desperation, some the spectacle, and some clarity. PD Song Manwoo preferred large-scale action with a grounded, realistic feel. The sense of impact was mostly conveyed through the sound design and camera movement.
Then the man standing beside Song Manwoo, wearing a black T-shirt like the rest of the martial arts staff, casually asked—
"So? You're not saying anything, which is making me a little nervous."
The martial arts director, a broad-shouldered man, gave an awkward smile. Song Manwoo lowered his arms, stroked his beard, and answered with a serious look.
"I already told you the continuity is good. There's no need to get so pointlessly nervous. You're the best of the best."
"Haha. You say that even though you know everything. Martial arts that look good in a comic are different from martial arts that look good in real life, right?"
"Are these people really locked in?"
"Yeah. They're the best I've got."
"Let's push it a little harder."
"All right."
The martial arts director called over the team members who had been demonstrating the sequence and gave them instructions. Soon, the action scene started over from the beginning, but this time it was far more intense than before.
"Sit!"
"Kuhk!"
Meanwhile, Song Manwoo pictured Kang Woojin joining this martial arts lineup as he worked through the directing in his head. Before long, a faint smile appeared on his face, and he turned to the assistant director standing nearby.
"Good. Let Woojin know where things stand with the martial arts training right now. Then ask whether the martial arts test can happen tomorrow or the day after."
"Yes, sir!"
The assistant director hurried off.
A moment later, the martial arts director, having returned, asked Song Manwoo—
"Tomorrow or the day after? Isn't that a little early? His skill is one thing, but he'll need time to get used to the movements too."
"Woojin's leaving for Japan soon. There are things I need to confirm before he goes."
"Ah."
"The schedule's too tight for a long test anyway. Just seeing his basic martial arts posture should be enough."
"That's true. Still, we finally get to see what Woojin can actually do."
The martial arts director rubbed his hands together and muttered—
"Between the black-box footage and everything else, I'm really curious what he's got."
A few minutes later, he told the selected martial arts team members to take a break. They immediately collapsed onto the mats, breathing hard. All of them were muscular and solidly built, but after going through that intense action sequence, being out of breath was only natural.
One of the short-haired men spoke first.
"Whew. I thought I was going to die. But is Kang Woojin really coming in person for the test?"
A few of the martial arts team members, still catching their breath, answered.
"The test? Well, same as always. It's just checking condition, really. We're the ones dying here. But they say Kang Woojin's insanely hot right now. Looks like he really is coming. Usually, someone like him would skip the test and go straight into practice."
"Right? Did you see what Kang Woojin said at the Blue Dragon Awards?"
"I did. He looked completely insane. Even if he's confident in his acting, he was way too direct. I didn't like it."
"Do you think that's really his personality? Or was it something his agency made him do?"
"What kind of agency would make Kang Woojin do something that ridiculous? He's just weird."
"Whew. Still, his nerve is something else."
"It's not nerve. He's just eccentric. Or maybe he was trying to act tough and it just slipped out."
The martial arts team quietly talked among themselves about Kang Woojin. It was the kind of scene you could easily find anywhere in the entertainment industry.
"How good do you think Kang Woojin actually is at martial arts?"
"From what I saw in the black-box footage, I'd say he's above average. The martial arts director said he'd had real combat training."
"No way. He probably just learned a little self-defense and got lucky. But if it had been Hwarin, I'd have risked my life too."
"Really? I don't know. He's still young, and I heard he hasn't practiced much. Besides, this is his first time properly joining an action project. He'll probably get nervous and mess up the moves a lot."
Right then, the most experienced and most heavily built member of the martial arts team, Park Cheolgyu, joined in.
"What if, on the day of the test, we raise the intensity of the action choreography a little? Not so much that it looks obvious."
"Huh? What do you mean by intense?"
"Well, isn't it kind of the tradition? When a rookie actor shoots his first action scene, you make it a little rough so it becomes something memorable."
Park Cheolgyu, built like a giant, gave a faint smile.
"Aren't you curious whether Kang Woojin really has nerves of steel?"