"So, can you all do what I say?"

Junwoo said.

"Do as you say..?"

The team members looked at each other with a bit of surprise, then nodded one by one.

Kim Yoojin hurriedly handed the script to Junwoo.

Junwoo glanced at the wall clock. The practice time had already passed by a lot. Their progress was almost non-existent compared to other teams.

The team members looked at him silently with anxious faces.

Once he understood their intentions, Junwoo folded the script.

*Thud*

"Then let's start over with the roles."

Junwoo tossed the script aside with a flick of his hand. The atmosphere suddenly changed.

The team members blinked in surprise at his actions. They had assumed that Junwoo would use the script he had finished analyzing, from the roles to the settings and modifications.

They had thought that Junwoo had been coming up with the best plan to save the team while they were practicing on their own.

"Wasn't I doing it the right way?"

"Yeah. I need to see your acting."

Junwoo answered calmly.

"What about that?"

Kim Yoojin pointed to the script lying on the floor.

"I just wrote that for fun, based on your general characteristics. I need to know what you're good at and what you're not good at."

He was being playful, but he was also being considerate.

Junwoo couldn't just go with the script he had changed on his own.

That's because the team members didn't have the skills to match it.

He had to rewrite the script based on their acting levels, habits, and strengths and weaknesses.

Junwoo sat down in an empty corner of the practice room.

"There are four roles in total. Please show us one scene for each role."

"Okay. I understand. Do you all have the script?"

Kim Yoojin stepped forward and gestured to the other team members.

Cho Kwang-soo frowned with an unhappy expression. If Kim Yoojin's words were to be believed, they would have to start the role distribution over again. He had already taken the role with the most screen time, but now he was in danger of losing it. He sighed.

'I have to show my acting skills to this kid like I'm auditioning?'

Cho Kwang-soo glanced around the practice room.

'It's embarrassing here...Do I really have to do this?'

The situation was already unfolding as if it were perfectly normal.

As he was thinking, Junwoo, who had been sitting there calmly, suddenly spoke up.

"If you don't like it, you can leave."

Junwoo was staring at Cho Kwang-soo with a blank expression.

Kim Yoojin was suddenly scared by his words.

"Hey, what's going on? Everyone, let's pick a scene each!"

"But are we the only ones who will be doing this? We're still teammates, so we should also see your acting. How do we know you won't take the best role?"

Cho Kwang-soo asked in a challenging tone. He seemed to be saying, "Do you think I don't know what you're up to?"

Junwoo replied.

"What's a good role?"

"Well, it's the one with the most screen time, or maybe the one with the best lines..."

Junwoo listened until that point and turned his gaze away.

"Then I'll take whatever's left. Is that okay? And I'll also act. Everyone needs a partner, right?"

"Hm..."

Cho Kwang-soo finally nodded reluctantly.

Kim Yoojin was the first to step up.

"I'll go first? I'll do scene 5."

Kim Yoojin stood up and took her place. Junwoo sat down and nodded, then opened the page that Kim Yoojin had mentioned.

'Oh man, I'm actually nervous. I'll just think of it as getting feedback from a friend.'

The other participants in the room stopped what they were doing and started whispering to each other when they saw the strange sight.

"What are they doing?"

"I don't know. Is it a story about an audition in a park?"

One by one, they looked at them with curious expressions, wondering what scene it was. The filming crew and officials assigned to the practice room also began to watch the situation with interest.

Kim Yoojin cast a spell in her mind that this place was not a practice room but the Seoul Station Plaza. The participants surrounding her were just citizens there.

Concentration. It is the act of immediately focusing on the situation, free from external distractions.

Kim Yoojin had learned to immerse herself in a scene through her training at the academy.

Junwoo caught a glimpse of the change in Kim Yoojin's face and narrowed his eyes for a moment.

The scene was set in Seoul Station Plaza. The production team had prepared a story that would depict a dangerous situation for about 20 minutes.

Kim Yoojin began to speak her lines, acting out the role of a character who was feeling anxious and restless in front of Junwoo.

Kim Yoojin was twirling around in the same spot, her feet tapping the ground.

She was trying to create a sense of urgency, but the crowd's attention was not on her.

"Calm down and listen to me first."

Junwoo was sitting and delivering lines without a script.

"Hey, what are you doing? Can't you clean this up?"

Even though he was just sitting there, delivering lines lightly and briefly enough to keep the flow of the conversation going, people couldn't take their eyes off of him.

For each line that Kim Yoojin said, he would follow it up with lines from three other characters. He was quickly changing his expressions and tones, filling in the roles of the other three characters all by himself.

He didn't make any special gestures or movements and never took his eyes off Kim Yoojin. This was to help her stay immersed in the scene.

One of the staff remembered seeing Junwoo playing with a camcorder in the corner a few minutes ago.

"Is that the kid who was playing over there just now? I'm sure... until just a moment ago..."

He was sure that Junwoo had given up on this mission. He had seen him just lounging around while the other participants were practicing enthusiastically. But now,

"Let's try that line again. It doesn't have to be loud, so don't worry about your pronunciation."

Junwoo was the most serious person in the room. Even more so than the other team members who were deliberately immersed in their acting.

After Kim Yoojin, Heo Soon-tae also stood before Junwoo and started acting.

Behind Junwoo, Kim Yoojin and Cho Kwang-soo, who saw Heo Soon-tae acting for the first time, were slightly surprised.

'That mister is better than I thought. Can he really speak that fast?'

Junwoo nodded silently.

After a while, Junwoo, with a stern face, began to assign roles immediately.

"I'll keep this brief since we're short on time. Yoojin, you'll take Role 3."

"Why? I was most confident in Scene 2 earlier."

Kim Yoojin looked aggrieved.

"It's not that your pacing is unstable; it's just too fast. Trying to consciously fix it only makes it more awkward. The answer lies in your other habits. And as for the senior..."

Junwoo, without hesitation, began assigning roles based on his observations.

Kim Yoojin flinched.

He really speaks his mind, doesn't he?'

Even so, there was nothing to refute, so she could only stand there in silence. In the meantime, Heo Soon-tae looked grateful, saying that everything Junwoo said was true.

Next up was Cho Kwang-soo. Junwoo narrowed his eyes. After thinking for a moment, Junwoo began to speak to him in a straightforward tone.

"This is not just your problem. If you make a mistake, the team will collapse because of you."

"Me, me alone?"

Junwoo spoke in a firm voice, making sure he was heard.

"You blink too frequently. You keep making awkward gestures, even though they're unnecessary. It's not that you're intentionally making movements to enhance your acting. You're just using your body because you are insecure about your acting. Doing a monologue is a way to hide your bad acting. Still, in team missions, it's just a distraction."

Then, as if he didn't understand,

"You've probably heard it a lot before, so why haven't you fixed it?"

Cho Kwang-soo couldn't speak. Junwoo was simply stating the facts in a calm and matter-of-fact way, without any malice.

'Serves him right.'

Kim Yoojin thought that, but she still felt a bit uneasy. She had been annoyed with Cho Kwang-soo from the beginning, anyway, because he was just an unknown actor who always showed off and bossed the other team members around. But to think that he would be spoken to like that. Kim Yoojin felt like she was in pain herself from the sharp criticisms.

Cho Kwang-soo's face turned red.

"I'm hiding my lack of acting?"

Cho Kwang-soo was an unknown actor who had been playing bit parts for five years.

He had played many roles but had no presence and couldn't catch people's attention. Using his body exaggeratedly when acting was a technique he had developed over time. After all, if he used his body, he could at least attract attention.

He felt like a switch had flipped inside him when he heard something he had been ignoring, even to himself.

He let out a hollow laugh. No one had ever said anything like that to him before.

And it was from a kid like that, in front of all the other participants.

He couldn't bear the shame.

"Hmm. I can't believe it. I thought you knew how to handle a script, so I was playing with you, but you're acting without manners to an adult."

Kim Yoojin, who had heard enough, interjected.

"Hey, mister. Why are you arguing about manners here? What he said is all true, you know!"

"To be honest, this is all your fault, the three of you. Have you ever been to a set? I'm a professional actor. I can't be compared to you guys. A kid like you, acting like you know everything, just because you heard something somewhere."

When Cho Kwang-soo started criticizing the team members' level, Junwoo raised his eyebrows. Did he want to hear praise from a kid?

While Cho Kwang-soo kept repeating the same words, stuttering and spitting, Junwoo glanced at the wall clock in the practice room.

They needed to decide the roles and move on to the next step, but Cho Kwang-soo was wasting time by throwing a fit.

"Am I wrong? Mister. Aren't you embarrassed? Acting like this in front of a kid when you're the oldest?"

Cho Kwang-soo pointed at Heo Soon-tae. Heo Soon-tae turned his head away in an attempt to ignore the situation. Junwoo turned his attention to the other team members, having already lost interest in Cho Kwang-soo's outburst. It seemed like it would be difficult to get everyone back on track with the script. Jun-woo sighed quietly.

The practice room had fallen silent. Everyone was holding their breath, watching the situation unfold. Cho Kwang-soo, aware of the attention he was getting, began to escalate even further. This time, he pointed at Junwoo.

"And you. Is that how you always talk? Do you have to be so rude, even when you're saying the same thing?"

"Why? It seems like you understood me just fine based on your reaction."

"What the hell?"

"Do you want me to waste more time by beating around the bush before saying it again?"

At that moment, Cho Kwangsoo lunged at Junwoo, bursting forward.

"Whoa..! Contestant! You can't do this!"

"Calm down! The cameras are rolling!"

At the same time, the staff who had been watching this scene nervously rushed out.

The officials grabbed his arms and legs one by one. Although the cameras were rolling, Cho Kwang-soo didn't seem to hear them. His eyes were bloodshot, and he was cursing.

The participants looked on with pity, murmuring to each other at the sight of this tall man charging at a child ten years younger than him.

"You little shit! You're not taking this seriously, are you?!"

At that moment, Cho Kwang-soo, who was struggling through the crowd of officials, threw the script he was holding at Junwoo.

"Ow! This crazy old man!"

Cho Kwang-soo missed. The one who screamed was Kim Yoojin, who was hit in the head.

The participants in the practice room began to get up in a commotion. Everyone scrambled to the side of the wall, trying to get away. At that moment, everyone's anxious gaze was fixed on Cho Kwang-soo, who looked like he might do something.

*Swoosh*

Something flew through the air like a boomerang.

"Ouch!"

It was a direct hit. Cho Kwang-soo was hit squarely in the forehead with the corner of the script and fell backwards.

Cho Kwang-soo was half-conscious and sobbing. Lying next to his head was the script he had thrown away earlier.