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Chapter 10
AS BEAUTIFUL AND ELEGANT AS THEY ARE, HANBOKare generally pretty uncomfortable, since they have long and poufy double-layered skirts. Since they were hard to get in Florida, I didn’t grow up wearing the traditional clothes of my ancestors, so I always feel like an imposter in them, like I’m an American trying to be Korean. But thanks to the power and awesome skills of the costume and makeup ladies, I look like full-fledged Korean royalty by the time I get on set, regardless of how I really feel inside.
When I watched Korean dramas from the comfort of my own home, I always thought the actors and actresses looked so glamorous in their fancy hanbok. But now I know that there’s nothing glamorous about acting out a historical part of a Korean drama.
The Gyeongbokgung Royal Palace looks as regal and cool as it always does, and its lake and trees are as picturesque as ever. But I’m freezing, hungry, and tired. Even though thehanbok I’m wearing is designed for winter months, I still need to wear a parka over it when we’re not shooting.
My nose runs constantly from the cold, and I carefully dab it with a tissue to avoid ruining my makeup. My breath fogs up the air as I review my lines with the script in one hand and a hot thermos of corn tea in the other. The tea is scalding hot, so I switch hands every few minutes.
Despite the minor discomforts, all of this is just part of a normal shooting day. What’snotnormal is that today, unfortunately, is the day when Bryan and I have to kiss.
But I’m a professional, aren’t I? I can handle this.
You’ve never kissed anyone,though, my brain reminds me. I gulp.
One bad thing about juggling school and an acting career is that I don’t have much of a social life. And Korean culture is a lot more chaste than American, so... yes, I, Hana Jin, sixteen years old, have never kissed anyone.
In my previous shows, the director let us younger actors “cheat the shot” to make it look like we’re kissing people even when we really weren’t. But that was before I became the lead. Kiss scenes between main characters in K-dramas are pivotal moments of the whole show and always consist of multiple angles, zoomed-out shots, and intimate close-ups. A swelling ballad love theme usually accompanies the zany cinematography, loudly declaring the characters’ love for each other to the whole world. A fake kiss isn’t going to cut it.
I know kissing people you barely know is just somethingyou have to do as an actress, but after our amusement park date, things have been so weird between Bryan and me. We haven’t even spoken since our last awkward text conversation.
Bryan gets to the set late, presumably because of traffic. I don’t really think much of his tardiness until after he’s done with hair and makeup, when he says good morning and bows to everyone except me.
I pretend not to notice. I mind my own business, looking over my lines while continuing to sip on my tea. I really don’t want to deal with whatever’s going on with him right now.
What annoys me even more than Bryan himself is how everyone’s responding to him. Director Cha gave me such a hard time that one instance I was late, but now he’s laughing and smiling, saying stuff like, “Ah, it’s no problem at all!” and “You were only a few minutes late anyway; no need to apologize.”
He wasthirtyminutes late. I suppress the urge to roll my eyes.
Bryan being late doesn’t negatively affect me personally, but it hurts our team. We’ll have to cram in more work in the same amount of time. Or worse, we’ll be behind schedule again. I hate that the director isn’t even commenting on how much Bryan is inconveniencing everyone else with his tardiness.
Bryan doesn’t meet my eyes for the entire time that the sound tech guy is getting him miked and ready to go. Instead, he tightly clutches his script and keeps his eyes on the paperlike his life depends on it, even though it’s unlikely that he desperately needs to look over his lines at this point.
Only when we’re about to start shooting does Bryan meet my eyes. And when he does, he’s a one-man master class in acting. In an instant, he goes from looking friendly and social to being cautious and withdrawn, like I betrayed his trust somehow. Except I didn’t. There wasn’t any trust to betray in the first place! Was there?
I wish I could check my phone to see if some new story broke out online that might explain his weird behavior. But my phone is safely tucked away in a cabinet with the rest of my clothes. I left it there today because my hanbok doesn’t have pockets.
Before I can ask Bryan what’s wrong, though, Director Cha says, “All right, you two ready to get started?”
Bryan hands his script to his assistant. I don’t have an assistant, and Sophia’s not on set with me today, so I quickly run over to put the rest of my stuff in my cabinet.
“Yes, sir,” Bryan replies, glancing back at me with that same pensive expression.
Okay, what the crap is going on?
The need to know what’s wrong is so strong that it’s hard to think of anything else. But I don’t want to get yelled at by the director again. I push aside all my concerns and get into character.
I first got into acting as a kid because I love the magic ofstepping into someone’s shoes. Of not having to care about my own life and my own problems for the few magical minutes after the director calls out, “Action!” When I’m in character, I’m someone else in another time and place, not Hana Jin, newbie teen actress.
Today, though, it takes all my effort to get into Sora’s head. No part of me wants to kiss Bryan right now, not when he’s being so weird.
I turn around to face the lake, like the script says I should, and wait. Bryan is supposed to start talking first.
And he does, but not in the way I expect him to.
“You’re up early, my princess,” Bryan says, supposedly in character. The scriptdefinitelysays he’s supposed to sound tender and hesitant. He sounds hesitant, all right, but he’s also downright resentful.
The director doesn’t call it, though, so I keep going, reminding myself over and over again that I’m not Hana, I’m the crown princess who later gets reincarnated as Sora.
