Chapter 2. I Had to Play a Married Couple with the Man I Was Going to Leave
Saying I would not run away was cowardly.
Baek Tae-gyeom pretended to hand me a choice after making his own. If I refused to sign, I would be the one who had run away.
Even knowing that, I picked up the pen.
“I-seo.”
Manager Bae called softly.
I read the last page of the contract again. The filming period, promotional obligations, and pre-negotiated intimacy clause. It was exactly what the lawyer and I had confirmed moments ago. Not a single sentence forced me to love Baek Tae-gyeom. Not a single clause said I had to lie in bed with my husband.
Actress Jeong I-seo would take the role, and actor Baek Tae-gyeom would play her counterpart. That was all.
I set down the pen the production company had given me and looked at the fountain pen lying in front of Tae-gyeom.
“Could I borrow that pen for a moment?”
Tae-gyeom’s eyes narrowed slightly.
To everyone else in the conference room, it probably looked like I was trying to humble an old rival. The production company’s CEO looked intrigued, while Director Go watched us in silence.
Tae-gyeom slid the fountain pen toward me.
“Go ahead.”
There was a very shallow scratch along one side of the barrel. I had dropped it three days after giving it to him and left that mark behind. When I offered to replace it with a new one, Tae-gyeom had laughed and said the scratch made it feel like his own.
With the hand that remembered that smile, I signed the contract.
Jeong I-seo.
The same name I had written on the marriage registration. But this time, it was not a signature I had to hide from anyone.
“I’ll take the role.”
Su-jin studied my face. I gave her a small nod.
It was not an impulse. This was a role I did not want to lose simply because the other actor was Tae-gyeom. If I gave up a good project just to avoid him, it would not be a separation. It would be running away.
More than anything, I wanted to know.
Whether I could act out the love in the script and still truly feel nothing.
“You made the right decision.”
The production company’s CEO rose from his seat and clasped his hands as if he might applaud.
“We’ll prepare the joint casting announcement this afternoon. Once both your names appear side by side, the industry will turn upside down.”
“Release the announcement only after both agencies give final approval.”
Su-jin drew a firm line.
“And don’t use the feud rumors with wording that’s excessively provocative.”
“Please don’t worry. We’ll handle it with dignity.”
The man whose eyes shone brightest whenever he talked about box-office success was promising dignity. I did not find that especially reassuring.
Director Go placed the two scripts, divided into separate volumes, in front of us.
“Now that the contract is settled, let’s talk about the project. Starting with the characters you’ll be playing.”
Their names from the drama were printed on the covers.
Yoon Seo-ha and Kang Jae-heon.
A wife who had decided to divorce and a husband who could not accept her decision.
“They’ve already agreed to get divorced.”
Director Go opened the first page.
“But it will take a month to sell the house Seo-ha’s mother left behind. Circumstances arise that make it impossible for either of them to leave the house empty, so in the end, they live together for one last month. They promise to sleep in separate bedrooms and eat separately, but while they live together, they keep intruding on each other’s territory.”
“Why does Jae-heon agree to the divorce?” Tae-gyeom asked.
Director Go looked at him.
“Because he’s tired.”
It was a short answer.
“Not because he doesn’t love her. Because the more he tries to prove his love, the more pathetic he feels. Jae-heon wants Seo-ha to stop him, so he is the one who presents the divorce papers first. Seo-ha takes it not as her husband’s final act of pride, but as a choice to abandon her.”
My gaze turned toward the other side of the table before I could stop it.
Tae-gyeom was looking only at the script. His fingers had tightened around the pages.
The words he had spoken in the entryway eight months ago came back to me.
*You loved me. But you never let me live as your husband.*
That day, I had not been able to refute him. Instead, I had shouted that he had never trusted me as his wife, either. What right did the man who had made the most important decisions alone, claiming he was protecting my life, have to talk about love?
We knew exactly where the other hurt most.
So we stabbed precisely there.
“Ms. Jeong.”
Director Go’s call brought me back to myself.
“Yes?”
“Why did Seo-ha agree to spend that last month together?”
I had read the script only three times. This was not a question meant to test whether I knew the right answer.
I thought for a moment before speaking.
“I think she wanted to make sure it was really over.”
“What was?”
“Love.”
My voice came out lower than I expected.
“If she could live with him and feel nothing, she could leave. If her heart did not move even after eating with someone familiar in a familiar house, only then could she believe she had made the right choice.”
“But what if her heart does move?”
Director Go asked.
Before answering, I met Tae-gyeom’s eyes.
He was looking at me. The tension had left his hand. I could tell from his gaze alone that he was waiting for my next words.
“Then she has to end it even more decisively.”
I looked at Tae-gyeom as I spoke.
“Having feelings left and being able to live together again are two different things.”
The conference room fell silent.
Director Go smiled slowly.
“I didn’t choose the two of you by mistake.”
Tae-gyeom did not smile.
As soon as the contract meeting ended, Su-jin dragged me into an empty dressing room.
The room was still under construction, and only half the bulbs around the mirror were lit. Once the door closed, Su-jin folded her arms.
“Tell me honestly.”
“About what?”
“Did you really do this because of the project?”
“Of course.”
“Were you not shaken at all?”
I set my bag down on a chair.
“Being shaken and signing a contract are separate things.”
“Then why did you turn your hands ice-cold from the moment you got in the car?”
Su-jin took my wrist. She knew that my body temperature dropped whenever I was tense.
I did not pull away.
“If you only signed because Tae-gyeom signed first, tell me now. I’ll find a way to cancel before you incur a penalty.”
“I didn’t follow him.”
“Then was it revenge?”
“What revenge would I take?”
“Seeing his face every day while pretending you’re fine and showing him that you can live perfectly well without him. That’s revenge, too.”
I looked at my reflection in the mirror.
My hair was smooth and neatly arranged, my makeup still flawless. No one could tell from that face how fast my heart had been beating moments ago.
“Did I look like that?”
“No. That’s why I’m more worried.”
Su-jin sat in the chair beside me.
“You always look more fine when you’re really hurting.”
I could not answer.
In fourteen years, I had learned not how to cry when I needed to, but how to smile where I was not allowed to cry. When I lost my first leading role, when I went to an ad shoot after my father’s funeral, when I sat beside Tae-gyeom at an awards ceremony the day after we got married, pretending we were strangers, I had smiled.
People called it professionalism.
Tae-gyeom called it cruel.
Cruel to myself, and to the people beside me.
“Manager.”
“Yeah?”
“While we’re filming, I really won’t let anything happen.”
“What do you mean by ‘anything’?”
“Anything that interferes with the project.”
Su-jin sighed.
“It looked like the project would be in trouble just from the two of you looking at each other.”
“I can use that for the acting.”
Once I said it, it sounded excessively cold. As if I meant to use my time with Tae-gyeom like material.
Su-jin seemed to think the same thing. She stared hard at my face.
“I-seo. Acting means borrowing emotions, but you can’t borrow a person, too.”
“I know.”
“Do you really?”
“Yes.”
The answer was easy.
Keeping that promise was the hard part.
Su-jin’s phone rang. It was the production company’s publicity team. After she stepped outside to take the call, I was left alone in front of the mirror.
Copies of the contract and the script lay on the table. Tae-gyeom’s fountain pen was beside them.
I realized only then that I had not returned it.
When I picked it up, its familiar weight settled into my hand. Even after we got married, we often misplaced each other’s things. My hair tie would turn up around Tae-gyeom’s wrist, and his script would be lying beside my bed. I complained about our belongings getting mixed together, but I liked those traces.
They felt like proof that one person had seeped into the other’s life.
My phone gave a short buzz.
*Return the pen.*
The sender’s name was saved exactly as it had always been.
Husband.
A name I had been unable to change even after we started our separation. Deleting the contact would make it feel truly over, while changing the name felt like denying our marriage. But saving him as Baek Tae-gyeom did not feel right, either. He had been too many things to me.
I was about to turn off the screen when I sent a reply.
*I’m in the dressing room.*
His response came immediately.
*Wait somewhere no one is around.*
My brows drew together at the command-like sentence.
*Why should I wait?*
There was no answer this time.
A moment later, the door opened.
Tae-gyeom closed the door as soon as he entered, but he did not lock it. Footsteps sounded in the hallway. Someone nearby could open the door at any moment.
I held out the pen.
“Here you go, Mr. Baek.”
Instead of looking at the pen, he looked at my face.
“Do you have to call me that even when we’re alone?”
“There are people outside.”
“Then call me whatever makes you comfortable.”
Tae-gyeom took the fountain pen and slipped it into his shirt pocket. Our fingers had not touched, but my fingertips still grew hot.
“You wanted to say something?” I asked.
“We said we’d talk after the contract was finalized.”
It did not take long to understand what he meant.
A mutual divorce after filming ended.
The last promise we had made on the day we began our separation.
“Do we have to do this here?”
“We don’t know when we’ll get another chance to be alone.”
“We agreed to settle it with our managers present.”
“The legal proceedings, yes. Right now, I’m confirming the promise.”
I looked at him without speaking.
Tae-gyeom’s emotions were hard to read on his face. But I knew why he had put his right hand in his pocket. He did that when he did not want anyone to see his hand. When he was angry, trembling, or wanted to touch me.
I did not ask which one it was.
“When filming ends, we’ll settle things as planned.”
His jaw stiffened ever so slightly.
“They said it’ll take about four months.”
“I know.”
“And it could take longer with the promotions.”
“That still won’t change anything.”
“Whatever scenes we film for the project?”
I did not answer right away.
There was a kiss scene in the script. There were scenes where they helped undress each other and woke up in the same bed. I had not received the full detailed script yet, but the explanation that it was an adult melodrama had given me some idea of what to expect.
That had been before I knew Tae-gyeom was my costar.
“Acting is acting.”
I finally opened my mouth.
Tae-gyeom nodded once.
“Right.”
“Even if your feelings get shaken while we’re filming, don’t use that as an excuse to change our promise.”
Only after saying it did I realize there was no subject. I could not tell whether I was speaking to him or to myself.
Tae-gyeom was silent for a moment.
“If that’s what you want.”
“And you?”
“I told you what I wanted eight months ago.”
He did not want a divorce.
He had agreed to the separation, but had refused to sign the mutual divorce papers to the very end. He had only backed down enough to say that if I really wanted it, we could talk again when filming ended.
“Say it again now.”
I did not know why I asked.
Tae-gyeom’s eyes lingered briefly on my lips before lifting again.
“Here?”
“Then forget it.”
“Even while you’re working on that project, I won’t change my mind.”
He took one step closer.
That one step was all that brought him nearer. He did not reach for me or block my way. If I stepped back, he would not follow me any farther.
I did not move.
“You plan to leave me when filming ends.”
“Yes.”
“I still want to be your husband then.”
My breathing grew shallow.
Someone laughed as they passed through the hallway. With only a door between us, we were talking about a marriage that did not exist in the eyes of the world.
“Then this isn’t time for us to persuade each other.”
I spoke quietly.
“While we’re filming, expect nothing except what the project requires.”
“I’ll handle my expectations myself.”
“Baek Tae-gyeom.”
“But I won’t force you.”
His voice softened.
“And I won’t make your choices for you again.”
It was not an apology. But at least it meant he knew what he had done wrong.
I looked away.
“We’ll talk again when filming ends.”
“Okay.”
“And don’t avoid me then.”
Before opening the door, Tae-gyeom looked back at me.
“I don’t think that’s something you can say to the person who didn’t avoid you today.”
Even after the door closed, I could not take my eyes off the place where he had stood.
That afternoon, we discussed the first script reading and the filming preparations.
Director Go stayed behind in the conference room with us after the contract was finalized. Su-jin and Tae-gyeom’s manager, Lee Jeong-u, sat on either side, while the writer brought in the revised detailed script.
“Today, let’s focus on getting the characters’ emotional progression right.”
Director Go pointed to the story sequence chart on the wall.
“In the first scene, they come out after stamping their signatures on the divorce papers. So to the viewers, they should already look like a relationship that’s over. But after spending a month in the same house, the things remaining between them gradually come to light.”
The scenes were arranged like photographs.
A married couple standing together in front of an empty refrigerator.
A husband drying his sick wife’s hair.
A night when neither of them could sleep even after closing the doors to their separate bedrooms.
A face watching one’s spouse smile at someone else.
“The important thing is not to answer whether they’ll reunite too quickly. Even when they desire each other again, the wounds have to remain. Physical closeness doesn’t solve the problem.”
Director Go’s words were painfully realistic.
“You two have to act more safely than anyone else on set. Intimate scenes will go through separate coordination, and we will never add movements that haven’t been agreed upon. I won’t suddenly demand anything on set, either.”
Tae-gyeom asked, “When do we decide the detailed blocking?”
“When Coordinator Nam Ji-an joins us, you’ll begin with individual consultations. After confirming each person’s boundaries and prohibited movements, the two of you will work it out together.”
“Will we confirm our agreement with each other again for every shoot?”
“Of course.”
Tae-gyeom nodded.
I knew why he was asking. I hated having someone suddenly grab the back of my neck. The fear had started after a costar put his hand there without prior agreement during a shoot long ago. Even when he kissed me, Tae-gyeom used to look into my eyes first and move slowly enough for me to know where he would touch me.
But that had been Baek Tae-gyeom when he was my husband.
I did not know whether I could expect the same consideration from him as my costar, or whether it was wrong even to expect it.
“Let’s start by reading the first scene.”
The writer opened the script.
Tae-gyeom and I found the same page.
The sound of turning pages filled the quiet conference room. I had already read the beginning at home from the two separate volumes of the script. Tiny notes crowded the margins beside the lines I had marked.
“Seo-ha’s first line should be very calm on the surface,” the writer explained. “She just left divorce court, but she’s someone who has been preparing for this for a long time.”
I read the line.
“Now all we have to do is clear out the house.”
Tae-gyeom took Jae-heon’s line.
“We agreed to sell it in a month.”
“Move your things out first.”
“Do you even remember what my things were?”
His voice struck my ears.
They were only words written in a script, but I remembered Tae-gyeom’s back as he gathered his shoes in the entryway. Even after he left, too many of his things remained in the house. His cup and shirts, the tickets tucked between books, the dark curtains in the bedroom that he had changed to suit my taste. Even after I cleared away the objects, the shape of our life did not disappear.
I missed the next line.
“Ms. Jeong?”
The writer called to me carefully.
“I’m sorry. I’ll do it again.”
Tae-gyeom said nothing. He only relaxed his grip on the script. It was what he did when he did not want to rush me.
The second time, I did not falter.
We read the script like people who had never rehearsed together, yet our rhythm was exact. When I held the end of a sentence too long, Tae-gyeom waited. When he swallowed a breath, I delayed my next line. Even without memorizing each other’s dialogue, we knew the length of each other’s silences.
Director Go did not interrupt us.
Only after we finished the first scene did he remove his glasses.
“You’re more dangerous than I expected.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“You fit too well.”
It did not sound like a compliment.
“Good chemistry helps the project, but if the relationship between the actors shows before the characters do, it’s a failure. It has to be Seo-ha and Jae-heon, not Jeong I-seo and Baek Tae-gyeom.”
“We’ll fix it,” Tae-gyeom answered.
“I’m not telling you to fix it. Don’t hide it. Give it to the characters. But I won’t ask why the two of you read each other so well.”
Director Go’s gaze lingered between us for a moment.
Cold sweat ran down my back.
The writer pulled out the script for a later scene to change the mood.
“This is around the middle of the month. The morning after they have dinner together for the first time.”
I reached out to take the new script.
Tae-gyeom moved at the same moment.
Our fingertips overlapped on the single script.
His index and middle fingers brushed mine very lightly. It was an accidental touch. Even so, heat began at my fingertips and traveled up my arm.
I pulled my hand back at once.
Tae-gyeom did not pick up the script.
His gaze rested on my right hand.
At some point, I had pressed my thumbnail against the side of my index finger. It was a habit that surfaced whenever I tried to hide my tension. No one noticed it in front of other people.
Except Tae-gyeom.
He spoke very quietly.
“You’re bleeding.”
No one else in the conference room could hear him.
I looked down at my finger. The skin beneath the nail was red and split. I hurriedly clenched my hand.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“You still do that.”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Knowing something once doesn’t mean I stop knowing it.”
He withdrew his hand first. Then he grasped the edge of the script and turned it toward me.
“Look first.”
It was a trivial concession.
And yet, in that moment, I realized this would keep happening for the next several months. He would continue noticing habits no one else knew about. I would remember the years we had shared at every minor touch. And in front of everyone else, we would have to pretend we were discovering each other for the first time.
Playing a married couple with the man I was going to leave might be more dangerous in moments like this than in a kiss.
I opened the script.
“Shall we prepare the next scene?” the writer asked.
“Hold on.”
I had grabbed the wrong page. I meant to find the middle scene, but the end of the script opened first.
It was the final-episode script, marked with red security warnings. Several scenes I had thought we had not received yet had been newly added.
I read the location at the top of the page first.
Seo-ha’s bedroom. Dawn.
Jae-heon comes to see Seo-ha one last time before leaving. For the first time since the divorce, they tell each other the truth. Seo-ha places her hand on the buttons of her husband’s shirt, and Jae-heon waits for her permission.
The nature of the scene was written in bold beneath it.
*The married couple’s final bed scene.*
My breath stopped.
Tae-gyeom looked down at the script in my hands with me.
This time, it was not our fingertips but our shoulders that touched.
Neither of us moved.