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# Chapter 16: How to Throw Yourself
The air inside the elevator was far too quiet.
The three of them—Minjun, Se-eun, and Junho—descended toward the underground parking garage. The floor numbers disappeared one by one. 5, 4, 3. Their reflections repeated endlessly in the mirror-like elevator walls, as if opening onto another world connected to infinity. Three of them in reality. Three of them in the mirror. And three more in the mirror within that mirror.
Minjun looked at his hands. They were trembling. A subtle tremor, but he could feel it. His nerves extended all the way to his fingertips, like a high-frequency signal. The scene with his father. Those words kept repeating in his mind.
The script had been clear. A scene dealing with the father’s death. A son feeling his father’s absence. And that son saying everything he’d wanted to tell his father.
“Breathe.”
Se-eun’s voice reached him. She stood beside Minjun, and somehow her presence felt enormous in the confined space—as if she were larger than she actually was.
“Breathe deeply. In through your nose. Out through your mouth. Slowly.”
Minjun followed her instructions, inhaling. The smells of the elevator entered him—stainless steel, faint disinfectant, and Se-eun’s perfume. Lilac, perhaps. These weren’t the delicate sensations of novels or films. They were the smells of reality.
“Think about that scene. What did you feel when you read the script?”
The question carried multiple traps. First, it posed as a question but was actually a command. Second, it forced Minjun to face his own emotions directly. Third, it made lying impossible—because her eyes were watching him.
“Fear.”
Minjun’s voice was small.
“Fear of what?”
“That my father will feel… real. That during that scene, I’ll feel like my father is standing in front of me.”
As he spoke those words, Minjun’s body trembled slightly, as if someone had traced a finger down his spine. Was this what Junho and Se-eun wanted? For him to expose himself. To acknowledge his fear. To reveal his weakness.
“Take that fear with you.”
Junho spoke. His voice seemed to fall from the elevator ceiling, like the voice of a god—though perhaps a god’s voice was never this gentle.
“That fear is your weapon. When Netflix sees it, they’ll know. You’re real. You’re an actor who strips yourself bare to your very core. They’ll see it.”
B2. The elevator stopped. The doors opened. The smell of the parking garage entered—motor oil, concrete moisture, and something metallic. Junho’s black Genesis was parked closest. A typical model for actors.
“Get in.”
Junho commanded. Minjun and Se-eun got in the car. The time was 2:47 PM. Thirteen minutes remained.
In the car, Junho said nothing. He simply drove. They exited Gangnam-ro and entered Teheran-ro, passing through a tunnel dark as night. Lights flashed continuously. Flicker, flicker, flicker—in a rhythm like traffic signals.
“Minjun.”
Se-eun called his name from the back seat. Her voice was remarkably clear in the car.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t apologize to me.”
When she said this, Minjun felt his chest drop again. Apology. It was the emotion he’d been feeling most intensely—sorry for hurting Se-eun, for leaving Junho lonely, for isolating himself.
“Don’t apologize to me. You go to Netflix. You get on that stage. And you meet your father. And you say everything you wanted to say. That’s your apology to me. Understand?”
Minjun couldn’t speak. Instead, his eyes wet again. Seoul’s night skyline reflected in the car window. The darkness deepened. The sun set, neon signs illuminated, and people returned to the nighttime streets. That was Seoul’s rhythm—day and night endlessly repeating.
The Netflix building on Teheran-ro in Gangnam came into view. A massive glass structure. Hundreds of windows within it, and behind each window, someone would be watching. Producers, directors, casting directors. And what they were observing wasn’t Minjun—it was what Minjun could express.
“One minute left.”
Junho said this as the car pulled into the building’s parking lot. Gray asphalt. White parking lines painted across it. Minjun felt like a car within those lines—trapped within boundaries, unable to escape them.
“Get out.”
Junho commanded. Minjun exited. Se-eun did the same. Junho handed the keys to valet parking.
They entered the building lobby together. It was very modern. White walls, black floors, and a massive Netflix logo. The lobby smelled like a new building—cement, glass cleaner, and air conditioning mixed together.
“What’s your name?”
The security guard at the entrance asked. It was an official question, posed to everyone entering this building.
“Minjun. Actor Minjun.”
Minjun answered. His voice still trembled. But something else mixed with that trembling now—not just fear, but resolve.
The guard checked the list and nodded.
“Third floor. Casting director’s office. Take the elevator and press 3.”
An elevator. Another elevator. Actors in this city rode elevators to climb and descend their lives. Everything was decided in those few seconds between floors. Pass or fail. Success or failure. Life or death.
Inside the elevator, Se-eun held Minjun’s hand. It was warm. Like pouring fire into his palm. That warmth traveled up his arm, reaching his shoulder, then his chest.
“You can do this.”
She whispered. The words were small, but they echoed in the elevator like a shout.
The doors opened. Third floor.
The hallway was very clean. Doors lined both sides, each with a nameplate. Producer. Director. Casting director. And before one of these doors, Minjun stood.
“I’ll wait.”
Se-eun said. Junho nodded.
“You go in. And you throw yourself. Everything.”
Minjun knocked on the door. His fingers rapped three times on the wood. Knock, knock, knock. The sound overlapped with his heartbeat.
“Come in.”
A voice—female. The casting director, presumably.
Minjun opened the door.
Three people sat inside. One woman (likely the casting director) and two men (who appeared to be the producer and director). All three looked at Minjun. Their gazes were heavy—as if someone were weighing his soul on a scale.
“Hello. I’m Minjun, an actor with The Star Entertainment.”
Minjun greeted them formally. A typical audition greeting. One he’d repeated thousands of times. But this time, something was different. Behind that greeting stood a rooftop. Junho’s hands. Se-eun’s voice.
“Hello, Minjun. We’re handling the casting for this drama. You’re familiar with this scene, yes?”
The casting director asked. Minjun nodded.
“Yes. The scene with my father. The scene dealing with my father’s death.”
“That’s right. Would you perform it for us?”
Minjun breathed deeply. That breath contained everything—the rooftop’s wind, Junho’s hands, Se-eun’s voice. And his own father.
In that moment, something strange happened.
Minjun’s eyes stopped seeing the objects in the room. The chairs, desks, windows—all faded. Instead, other things appeared in their place. The rooftop’s railing, a chair before a mirror, Junho’s face. All visible simultaneously, as if multiple films were being screened at once.
And in one of those films, Minjun saw his father.
His father was still dead. Just as he’d been ten years ago. But this time, he sat before Minjun. Not through a mirror, but directly. As if his ghost had followed Minjun from the cold metal railing, across the distance, to this place.
“Father…”
Minjun murmured. It wasn’t his own voice. It was younger. More desperate.
“Do you know why I’m like this?”
Minjun’s body folded forward without his knowing it. As if someone pressed on his spine. The posture would have looked strange in an audition room. But it was the posture of genuine emotion—not false sentiment, but true despair.
“You couldn’t tell me. Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you leave without explaining anything?”
Minjun’s voice shook. These weren’t words from the script. These were words Minjun created in the moment. But they were far more powerful than anything written, because they were real.
“I’ve… I’ve been sorry ever since. Sorry I couldn’t save you. Sorry I wasn’t enough. Sorry I couldn’t turn you around…”
Tears poured from Minjun’s eyes. Not performance tears. Ten years of held tears. They flowed down his face. And beside him, the casting director set down her pen. The director reclined in his chair. The producer simply watched, saying nothing.
“Why… why didn’t you say goodbye?”
Minjun’s voice grew quieter. Almost a whisper. As if he stood alone on that railing, with Junho and Se-eun and the entire world erased.
“I wanted to be an actor. You knew that. You told me to try. You said I could be different. But I… I couldn’t. I kept failing. And I kept thinking—was it my fault? Was I not good enough? Or did you… did you already know I’d fail?”
Time seemed to stop. The three people in the room didn’t move. Neither did Minjun. He simply sat there, tears flowing.
And in that silence, Minjun understood something.
On the rooftop, he’d thought he was ready to die. But that wasn’t true. What he’d wanted wasn’t death—it was his father’s voice. His father’s confirmation. His father’s love. Because he never received that, he’d gone to the rooftop.
But now, in this moment, in this room, he was accepting that his father was gone. And at the same time, accepting that he wasn’t alone.
Junho is outside. Se-eun is outside.
They see me. They see who I am, what I want, how broken I am.
Minjun lifted his eyes and looked at the casting director.
“Thank you.”
When he said this, the casting director’s expression changed. As if Minjun had said something profoundly important.
“We’re the ones who should be thanking you.”
The casting director spoke slowly. She exchanged glances with the producer and director beside her. They both nodded.
“This role has… already been decided.”
The director spoke. His voice was very low, like an actor delivering a crucial ending in a film.
Minjun didn’t understand. Already decided? Did that mean he’d failed, or that he’d passed?
“The lead. The main role of this drama. We want you to do it.”
The producer said this.
In that moment, Minjun’s world trembled.
When the door opened, Se-eun and Junho immediately sensed it.
The moment the audition room door opened and Minjun stepped into the hallway, his face was full of something.
Se-eun’s tears came when she saw him.
Minjun’s face was completely open. Everything was revealed. Fear, sadness, and beneath it all, a hidden light.
“What—”
Minjun started to speak, but before he could finish, Se-eun embraced him. Her arms wrapped around his neck with such desperation, as if she’d lose him to somewhere else if she let go.
“Congratulations.”
Junho lightly patted Minjun’s shoulder. His voice remained calm, but something warm flowed through it.
Minjun still couldn’t speak. He simply remained in Se-eun’s arms, as if in a dream he could wake from.
“You’re the lead in Netflix, Minjun.”
Se-eun whispered. Her voice trembled with tears.
“You did it. You really did it, Minjun.”
In that moment, Minjun realized he was still alive. That he’d been able to leave that railing, to come this far, was only because someone had held onto him.
And those someones were holding him now.
The elevator descended. From the third floor to the first. To the lobby. And out into the Seoul night.
That night was the same as every other night, but to Minjun’s eyes, it looked completely different. As if someone had opened his eyes again.