The first time Seo-jin watched an actor say her words and almost believe them, she'd been twenty-two, still certain the world was meritocratic if you simply bled hard enough on the page.
The novelty had burned out of her long ago.
Now, she watched Li Feng from behind a bank of monitors, fingers tucked into the sleeves of her hoodie, nails pressed into her palms. On-screen, he was a man at the edge of a confession; on set, he was a man trapped between Director Kang's compromises and Park Min-ah's soft, drifting line readings.
From this angle, he looked almost peaceful. It was the cruel trick of cameras: they flattened effort into grace.
"Cut!" Director Kang shouted, the word cracking through the stage. "Good, good. Great energy."
It wasn't, not really. The beat before the final line sagged like unpressed fabric. But Seo-jin knew better than to say that out loud. Her job, as the invisible woman, was to shore up the illusion without claiming any part of it.
The monitors flickered back to the live feed of the set. Li Feng rolled his shoulders once, the tension leaving his frame like smoke that never quite dispersed. Beside him, Min-ah blinked at her script, lips moving as though she had to taste each syllable to trust it.
"Min-ah-ssi," Director Kang called, with a cheerfulness that meant he'd just been texted by a sponsor, "you're great, really. But can we try that last line with… more sparkle? This is your big realizing-he-sees-you moment."
Min-ah's eyes darted to the edges of the room, searching for her translator.
"Seo-jin!" one of the PAs called, already gesturing. "Min-ah-ssi needs you."
Of course she did.
Seo-jin slipped her notebook into her back pocket and crossed the set, keeping her head down, the hood up. She had mastered the art of moving as if she were always on an errand, always too busy to be spoken to, and thus rarely was.
Min-ah seized her arm the way a drowning person would grab anything that floated.
"What does he want?" Min-ah whispered in breathy panic, careful to keep her mouth almost-smiling in case anyone with a camera looked their way.
"He wants your realization to show on your face before you speak," Seo-jin murmured back. "Right now, it looks like you already know he likes you and you're just… confirming it. But the scene is written like it's the first time she truly believes it."
"But I did that." Min-ah's lower lip trembled, exactly as it did in every behind-the-scenes shot that made her fans coo about her "natural vulnerability." "I did the eyes. Didn't I do the eyes?"
"You did the eyes," Seo-jin said gently. "But your shoulders are too relaxed. You're standing like you're in a cosmetics CF. If someone tells you they see you, after you've spent years pretending to be fine being invisible, it should feel like… like your body doesn't know whether to move closer or run away."
It slipped out before she could catch it: that word, invisible, like a note she'd accidentally left in the margins of real life.
Min-ah frowned. "So… what do I do with my hands?"
Seo-jin sighed, soft enough that only Min-ah could hear it.
"Hold your script like it's a shield," she said. "Then, when he says the line, let your grip loosen, just slightly. Like you forgot you were defending yourself."
"Oh." Min-ah's brow smoothed, relief coming in place of understanding. "Write that down for me? In the margins. Big letters. I'll forget."
Always the margins.
"Sure," Seo-jin said.
She took Min-ah's script, already pockmarked with hearts and doodles, and squeezed her mechanical pencil. In the cramped space next to the line, she wrote:
Let go. You're tired of pretending you don't care. But you're still scared it's a trick.
Next to that, in smaller handwriting, one that she had learned to keep private, she added:
For once, imagine someone reading you instead of projecting onto you.
She was almost certain Min-ah would never see that second sentence. But she wrote it anyway. Old habits. The side no one read had always been the truest.
As she finished the tiny note, she felt a shadow fall over the page.
"Interesting," Li Feng's voice murmured, above and behind her. "So that's what she's feeling."
Seo-jin snapped the script closed, too late. His gaze was sharp, not at her but at the ink.
"Side B," he said mildly. "The better script."
He wore his character half-undone, shirt collar open, tie crooked, traces of the previous scene's heartbreak still clinging to his features. Up close, his eyes were not the placid dark of promotional posters but restless, observant. They flicked from the script to her face, noting the hood, the glasses, the layers of armor.
"This is Min-ah-ssi's copy," she said, defaulting to professional neutrality. "You should be looking at your own."
"My own tells me to smile on page forty-three like I've just swallowed an endorsement deal." His lips curved, but not into anything like a smile. "This one tells me why I'm not smiling."
"That's not for you," Seo-jin said.
"I agree," he replied. "It's for the character. I'm just borrowing it."
Director Kang called for reset, and the set reshuffled around them. A camera operator brushed past; a makeup artist hustled toward Min-ah with a powder puff like a weapon. The chaos made a small, false privacy around them.
"Is Ms. Han scolding Li Feng again?" one of the crew whispered to another, too loud.
"Maybe she should just write his lines herself," the other snickered.
Seo-jin felt the familiar burn at the back of her neck. A thousand tiny deaths, never recorded in any script.
"Give it back," she said quietly.
He held the script out, but his thumb stayed on the margin where her words lay.
"'Imagine someone reading you instead of projecting onto you,'" he read, ignoring her extended hand. His Korean was precise, carefully practiced, and slow enough that each word landed. "Did that come from the writer or from you?"
She plucked the script from his grasp.
"If it's in the script, it's from the writer," she said. "I'm just the assistant."
His gaze lingered on her, as if he were trying to reconcile two versions of someone: the person who spoke like that, and the person who hid behind institutional titles.
"There are two writers," he said. "The one whose name is in the opening credits, and the one whose handwriting is in the margins."
"You're very romantic for someone who hates fake scenes," she muttered.
"You think that's romantic?" He huffed out a soft, humorless breath. "It's just observation. The margin writer understands people. The credited one understands algorithms."
"Lucky for everyone, algorithms pay the bills," she replied. "We're rolling."
He didn't move immediately. Instead, he dipped his head closer, lowering his voice again.
"I've been reading these notes," he admitted. "Min-ah leaves her scripts everywhere. Dressing rooms, cars, food tables. The handwriting changes when it matters. The small script, tucked in—those notes make sense. They talk about fear, regret, the weight of pretending. The others just say, 'Look more cute' or 'Think of your dog.'"
"You shouldn't read what isn't yours," she said.
"I disagree," he said. "The character is mine. So are any words that make him honest."
He started to pull away, then paused.
"One more thing," he added. "If you really believe you're 'just' the assistant, you're bad at lying."
"Action!" Director Kang shouted, obliterating any chance she had at responding.
Li Feng turned, and in the space of a blink, his posture altered. His shoulders sank, his gaze softened—not with romance but with the careful attention of someone who had finally decided to see another person clearly.
Min-ah clutched the script like a shield. Seo-jin watched, breath held, as the scene unfolded.
"Do you really think no one notices you?" his character asked, voice low.
Min-ah's grip whitened around the edges of the pages.
"You're always in the corner," he continued. "Laughing too loud or not at all, pretending you don't care if they forget you."
For a moment, Min-ah looked genuinely unsettled, as if he had stepped out of the script and into something closer to her own reflection. The line wasn't written like that—not with that particular emphasis—but the essence was there, twisted by his instincts.
Her fingers loosened, just a fraction, on the script. It was small, but it was there. The shield slipping.
A shiver ran up Seo-jin's spine. Something she had written—something buried in ink no one was supposed to read—had threaded its way into his delivery.
"Cut!" Kang yelled. "Perfect. That's it. That—" he pointed at Min-ah "—that micro-moment right there? That's what we sell in the teaser."
He strode toward them, beaming.
"Min-ah-ya, see?" he said, affectionate, patronizing. "You're getting it. Your acting is really deepening. The media will go crazy. Maybe we can talk to your team about an acting masterclass sponsorship. 'How Park Min-ah Finds the Truth of a Scene.'"
Behind him, Hye-rin appeared like a summons, tablet in hand, impeccable as always. She smiled at the director, then at Min-ah, then let her gaze drift—just once—to Seo-jin.
"Her truth," Hye-rin said smoothly, "is that she is incredibly hardworking, and she has the best support team in the industry."
"Of course she does," Kang agreed. "That's why we invest in people, not scripts. Scripts are replaceable."
The word lodged in Seo-jin's throat like a shard of glass. Replaceable.
Li Feng's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. He glanced at Kang, then at Min-ah, who was beaming, soaking up every word of praise like sun on brand-new skin. Then his eyes landed on Seo-jin.
Something in his look said: I heard that too.
"Speaking of support teams," Hye-rin continued, now addressing Kang, "the network loved the last-minute changes to episode seven. They're saying the emotional beats feel 'surprisingly mature' for an idol vehicle."
Kang preened. "Ah, well. We do what we can."
"Actually, they specifically mentioned Min-ah's lines," Hye-rin said lightly. "The additions about 'being tired of performing happiness.' They think it's very… meme-able. The head writer credits Min-ah for the inspiration. She said Min-ah improvised, and they shaped around that."
Seo-jin's heart tripped.
That line had come to her at three a.m., hunched over a cheap convenience store coffee, when the neon outside had looked like a wound. She had written it in the margins first, a note to herself: You're not sad, you're exhausted from performing happiness.
She had transferred it to the draft later. Shrunken, tidied, anonymized.
"I didn't improvise," Min-ah said, puzzled. "Did I?"
"Of course you did," Hye-rin cooed. "You're more brilliant than you realize. The team only wants to uplift your storytelling instinct."
Seo-jin watched, nausea curling. There it was: the story being told, louder than the truth. Genius, sabotage, inspiration—assigned like roles.
"Well, if it sells, it's genius," Kang said. "Genius Park Min-ah, our golden girl. Sponsors like that narrative. We'll highlight it in the behind-the-scenes."
Talk shifted to promotional schedules, variety show appearances, which lines would trend best on social media.
No one looked at the woman in the hoodie who had bled those words out when no one was watching.
Except, again, Li Feng.
He stepped closer, his voice low enough not to carry.
"That line wasn't in the original script," he said. "I remember. It showed up in the revised Side B. In your handwriting."
"You misremember," she replied, not trusting herself to look up. "Lines come from lots of places."
"Sure," he said. "But some places hurt more than others."
It was a strange mercy, the way he said it—not pitying, not heroically outraged. Just… acknowledging. Naming the wound without touching it.
She was about to answer when her phone buzzed in her pocket. A message from the head writer:
Check your email. New policy on script circulation. Also, need you to speak to Li Feng about not stealing assistants' copies. Sponsors are nervous about leaks.
Her stomach dropped.
She opened her email. The subject line glared: LEAK PROTOCOL – URGENT.
She skimmed. Legal language, PR strategies, words like unauthorized distribution and reputational harm. Embedded in the middle was a paragraph about assistants, secondary staff, and the importance of "maintaining trustworthy optics." The subtext was clear as neon: If something leaked, it would be blamed downward, not upward.
"You look like you swallowed a camera battery," Li Feng observed.
"Corporate indigestion," she said, tucking her phone away. "Don't worry, it won't show up in your close-ups."
"Is this about the 'leaked script' rumors?" he asked suddenly.
She blinked. "What rumors?"
He tilted his head. "You really don't check the internet while we're shooting."
"I prefer my despair uncurated."
He almost smiled. "There's talk some betting forums got ahold of episode summaries early. People are accusing the production of drip-feeding spoilers for buzz. The studio is denying everything, of course."
"Of course," she echoed, her pulse speeding up.
Hye-rin's earlier words floated back, ominous now.
In a hit like this, even notes can become… evidence.
"Anyway," Li Feng continued. "The email they just sent me says we'll be tightening script access. Only top-level staff and lead actors get full copies going forward." He paused. "Assistants will receive scene-specific excerpts."
Her mouth went dry. Being cut out of the full narrative, reduced to fragments. It was an old, familiar sensation—and still, somehow, fresh.
"Efficient," she said. "Less paper wasted on nobodies."
He watched her carefully. "You don't look like a nobody when you're writing," he said. "You look like you own the scene."
"That's the point of invisibility," she replied. "You can own everything as long as you never admit it."
"Is that your philosophy," he asked, "or your prison?"
Before she could answer, Hye-rin's voice sliced between them.
"Li Feng-ssi," she called smoothly. "The producers want a quick behind-the-scenes blurb for the official channel. Something about how Min-ah's energy inspires you to dig deeper as an actor."
"Ah," he said. "My favorite genre: fiction."
Hye-rin smiled without warmth. "We all act, in our own ways, don't we?"
Her eyes brushed over Seo-jin, then moved on, already calculating.
As Li Feng walked away, script tucked under his arm, Seo-jin caught a glimpse of the edge. In the corner, where no one was supposed to look, a familiar small handwriting curled.
Not his. Hers.
He'd taken Min-ah's copy again.
Her pulse stuttered. Annoyance prickled; so did something unwelcome, like hope. The kind teenagers wrote about in fan forums when they imagined being "seen" by their favorite star.
This was different, she told herself. He wasn't seeing her. He was seeing the work. The invisible line between them was ink, not intimacy.
Still, when the set quieted for the next setup, and the crew scattered, she found herself drifting toward the edge of the lights, where he stood alone, reading.
His lips moved, tracing her notes like a prayer in a language he had chosen to learn.
In his other hand, his phone buzzed. He glanced at it, thumb hovering, then turned it face-down on a nearby crate without reading the message. For a second, his shoulders slumped in a way that belonged to neither his character nor to any public version of Li Feng.
Loneliness, she thought. Recognized it like a stanza she'd written years ago.
Across the set, Min-ah laughed too loudly with her manager. Director Kang rehearsed his genial sound bites for the press. Hye-rin checked off names on a digital call sheet, her expression flat, efficient.
In the middle of it all, a man read her handwriting like it mattered.
Seo-jin dug into her pocket and felt the folded page from earlier, the one Hye-rin had warned her about. Evidence of genius. Evidence of sabotage.
Evidence, either way.
Everyone was already calculating what they were willing to pay for their version of the story.
She just hadn't expected that the first person to notice the true cost—even quietly, even stubbornly—would be the one person whose silence could destroy her, or save her, with a single, well-timed truth.
And he didn't even know yet whose margins he'd been falling in love with.