| Episode 171. Office Remodeling
The first shoot day for “In My Office” had dawned.
The call time I’d been given was nine, but I didn’t want to get stuck in rush-hour traffic, and I wanted to get a feel for the set beforehand. So I left early—only to arrive two whole hours ahead of schedule.
“Iwol, there’s still a lot of time left. Do you want to wait in the car?”
“No. There’s still so much I don’t know, so I should hurry over and learn. I’ll head straight to the set!”
Which was how I ended up loitering around the set, just enough not to get in anyone’s way.
It was my first time seeing a drama shoot. The atmosphere was quite different from a music video shoot, which made it pretty interesting.
‘They did a good job on the set.’
I heard they’d rented an empty office in an existing company building and just filled it with props, but the props had a lived-in feel. The props team must have worked hard.
I was pressed against the wall, sneaking glances at the set, when the director’s expression began to change into something increasingly ominous.
The way he kept pointing back and forth between the paper in his hand and the partitions suggested that something had gone seriously wrong.
“No, did those installation team bastards really set it up like this and just leave?!”
The director’s shout struck the set. Everyone’s eyes turned toward him.
“Did they even look at the layout? Ah, these sons of bitches are unbelievable.”
The director roughly raked a hand through his hair. No one dared ask him what had happened.
The assistant director, who was looking at what seemed to be the layout beside him, also grew grave.
“How long do you think it’ll take if the installation team leaves now?”
“Even if they come right away, it’s rush hour… They might arrive in time, but they won’t be able to finish the work by the scheduled time.”
“All the actors are coming at nine. Does that make any sense? No, it’s not like they’ve only been doing this a day or two. How do they make a mistake like this?”
It even reached the point where they started discussing calling the installation team back after they’d already left.
I quietly gauged the mood, then carefully asked a staff member who had just stepped away from the director’s group.
“Um, did some kind of problem come up?”
At my question, the staff member quickly looked around, then whispered into my ear.
“You know our male lead’s seat? Apparently it’s in completely the wrong place.”
“His seat?”
“There’s a specific place where the team leader’s desk is supposed to go, but it seems the installation team arranged it exactly like the office next door to this company. They didn’t look at the layout.”
On a set where the camera had to move around the same space dozens of times, you could call that a big problem if you wanted to.
Still, wasn’t it just a matter of moving the desk to where it was originally supposed to be? It didn’t seem like that difficult of a job.
“Should we move the desk now?”
Just then, someone over there also suggested changing the table arrangement.
There were more than enough grown men here, so moving a few tables and organizing the props would be incredibly tight in two hours, but still doable.
However, the director didn’t give his approval.
“You think moving the desk is all there is to it? What about the LAN cables! They’ve already put all the raceways down. Are we going to rip them all up and start filming? Or are we going to show the protagonist’s computer without an internet connection every single time? Do you not know viewers zoom in on all of that?”
The gist was that they couldn’t touch the internet cables installed on the floor. Usually, that was true. Unlike furniture companies, LAN cables required a separate contractor.
But if there weren’t many computers, and it was only a matter of connecting LAN cables to ports at most…
“Hello, Director. I’m really sorry for interrupting.”
“Iwol? Why are you here so early?”
“I thought the youngest shouldn’t be late, so I hurried a little. But would the problem be solved if we just moved Team Leader Ji’s desk?”
At my words, the director gave me a strange look.
“Yes, technically, but… that isn’t easy right now. First, we’ll have a meeting and…”
“Um, I think I can do it… I’ll work carefully, so may I try sorting it out?”
A look of doubt flashed through the director’s eyes.
Understandable. There was no time, and I, the one stepping forward, looked like a twenty-one-year-old greenhorn to everyone else.
“I appreciate your enthusiasm, but this is all tangled up in one thing and another. We already arranged the cables so the camera or the actors’ feet wouldn’t get caught on them. So if we rip this up, it’ll get a bit troublesome.”
“Yes, I’ll keep that in mind while sorting it out.”
“What?”
In episode one, I had exactly two lines to deliver.
For those two lines, I’d stopped by the shop at dawn. After filming ended, I had to go work on fan meeting ideas too. Even if I squeezed every minute out of my schedule, it still wouldn’t be enough.
But I couldn’t stand filming being delayed over something like this, with the installation team coming back and the table arrangement being changed.
I went to the car and brought back the backpack I’d been carrying around ever since the Do Yeonghwan audition, then set it down on the floor.
And from inside it, I pulled out a handful of cable ties.
After putting on the work gloves I’d diligently carried with me since the time I lit charcoal in a drum barrel, I got to work pulling up the cable raceways on the floor. Only the sections I needed.
If this were for use in an actual office, I would have had to match the cable numbers so the IPs wouldn’t get mixed up.
But on a small-scale set like this, it was a different story.
A few PCs wouldn’t cause any conflicts, and no one was going to do real work, so as long as they were connected, it would be fine.
In that case, there was no need to change the entire table arrangement. Haphazardly swapping the lines around would be more than enough.
As I held a few cable ties in my mouth and busily tied the cables together, old memories came back to me.
Days when I bought insulating tape with my own money and wrapped exposed wires with it, days when I was dragged into installing cable raceways every time the office moved.
Thinking about it now, I must have been insane to do all of that.
Thanks to the existing cable organization being neat, it was resolved by moving only two or three work desks. I crawled back under the desks, tied and organized the protruding cables, then taped the raceways I’d pulled up back into place.
Finally, I kicked the raceways hard with my foot to check whether they stayed where they were.
“Director, will this be all right to finish it up? If you check the desk placement, I’ll move the props!”
At my words, the director, who had been standing there blankly, nodded.
See? I told you. It wasn’t a difficult problem.
I smiled brightly and moved the props onto the changed desk. Then, first, I had to hear a staff member say, “Iwol, stop working and go wait!” and second, I had to hear my manager say, “Iwol, sit down until someone calls you!”
* * *
“So? You went and worked again?”
Lee Cheonghyeon said, sounding fed up.
“If I hadn’t, the filming was going to be delayed. What was I supposed to do?”
“They say acting eats up a lot of time, and I guess it really does.”
“Tell me about it.”
This time, I agreed with Lee Cheonghyeon. After all, despite being on set all day, the only contribution I made was two lines: “Assistant Manager, here are the materials you requested,” and “For now, I think I understand that going home on time is out of the question for the time being.”
For the record, Ha Seomyeong used the exact same ad-lib he’d done during the script reading on set too. My heart nearly didn’t survive.
“Hyung, you said it was that office worker role, right? A securities guy?”
“Yeah. Why? Does it not suit me?”
“No, it does suit you. That’s what’s weird.”
“What is that even supposed to mean…”
I shook my head and took out my diary when Lee Cheonghyeon spoke from behind me.
“But it really is weird.”
“What is?”
“You, hyung. Why does seeing you like an office worker not feel awkward at all?”
For a moment, my heart nearly stopped.
Lee Cheonghyeon himself was perfectly calm.
“It’s not like you’re the type who wants to act out some professional, polished image, either. It’s just that you seem like you originally were an office worker.”
“Did you forget I’ve been living as a trainee with you guys since I was twenty?”
“That’s why it’s weird.”
I wanted to lighten the mood, but Lee Cheonghyeon got strangely serious in odd places.
“Is it some kind of admiration for office workers? Or was it your dream for the future?”
“No way.”
It had been my dream when I was in high school, but I had not a shred of admiration for it. Company or whatever, I wanted to escape even the benefits of the four major insurances and live as a single-person household.
“Come to think of it, compared to how much you know about us, you really don’t talk about yourself.”
I flinched. From these guys’ perspective, there must definitely have been moments where it felt like I could see right through them.
“Is there anything you’re curious about?”
“A lot.”
“But you don’t ask?”
I opened the page I’d bookmarked in my diary. Around here, I’d written down ideas related to the fan meeting…
“Because I don’t think you’ll answer.”
…My hand stopped.
I looked at Lee Cheonghyeon, who was lying on Choi Jeho’s bed with his laptop. He didn’t avoid my gaze.
Even so, I couldn’t say, “Ask if you’re curious.”
“See? You can’t readily tell me to ask, can you?”
Lee Cheonghyeon understood that feeling of mine all too well.
“But hyung, if there’s anything hard while you’re working, talk about that kind of thing.”
“…All of a sudden?”
“It’s not like it matters for us. You touch on everything we do anyway.”
Lee Cheonghyeon shrugged.
“So talk to the members about your work too, hyung. That way it balances out.”
With those words, Lee Cheonghyeon turned his head back to the laptop screen. He looked a little awkward, and also a little embarrassed.
Pretending not to notice that feeling, I took my diary and pen and left the room.
* * *
In the past, I had gone to Spark’s fan meeting exactly once.
At the time, UA had been excessively obsessed with identity verification, and since I refused to use Department Head Nam’s daughter’s account to ticket on my behalf on the grounds that personal information was precious… that was how it happened.
That day, I received more attention than I ever had in my life. Maybe they were worried I’d feel left out, because I remember many people kindly sharing free stickers with me.
So how was Spark’s fan meeting itself, you ask?
What’s there to say? It was boring as hell.
Choi Jeho was staring into empty space, Park Juu had his gaze fixed on the floor, Kang Giyeon was spouting nonsense, and only Lee Cheonghyeon was charging ahead on his own like he’d slipped his reins.
If I had been Jeong Seongbin, I would’ve called them all into the waiting room after the fan meeting and told them that if they hated being idols that much, they should pack up and get out. Seongbin, you’re the only one who must never leave this team.
‘At least now, everyone’s trying to do something, though…’
How could we present Sparklers with the best fan meeting possible?
The large-scale meeting for that purpose was held today, in that sickening underground practice room.