Fifteen Days

Baek Ga-yoon stared holes into the screen, her face drained snow-white. I can't believe my own eyes.

"Senior. Are you all right?"

Jung Ga-yoon had come hurrying after her, and every syllable of that question dripped with loathing.

"What—this is real...!"

Sputtering curses, Baek Ga-yoon threw a tantrum and swung her hand out. That shameless girl, rattling her without knowing a single thing—the nerve of her. She fully intended to knock that head sideways with a slap. But—

Snatch! Jung Ga-yoon caught her wrist without so much as a blink.

"I won't fall for it a second time."

Twice? Had something like this happened before? She could feel the stares of the surrounding staff converging on her.

How humiliating—damn it!

She yanked her arm back, and Jung Ga-yoon let go of her wrist without protest. The composure on the other woman's face, so unlike her own, only made the heat rush up her neck.

Snarling under her breath, Baek Ga-yoon swept her glare around the set.

"No! It's not like that!"

Her voice cracked clean in two. It's not what you all think it is! She protested with everything she had, but the eyes fixed on her seemed to be curdling into open distaste.

Her breathless chest rose and fell without pause. There was no way she could keep acting in this state.

Kicking off her cumbersome heels as though to be rid of them, Baek Ga-yoon fled toward her dressing room. Lee Jeong-han scooped up the shoes and scrambled after her.

Just then, a whisper pierced her ears with unnatural clarity.

"Wow. The one and only Baek Ga-yoon, utterly eaten alive by her junior's acting."

In that instant, her face flared scarlet. Damn it. I will kill that Jung Ga-yoon somehow. I will.

"What do we do about the shoot, Director?"

The assistant director asked, raking his hair back in frustration. How long would it take a panicked Baek Ga-yoon to pull herself together and return to normal? Any further delay and the whole schedule would come apart at the seams. Rather than wait on Baek Ga-yoon in that state, it might be better to let her sit this one out and rejoin them for the next shoot.

Director Kang, eyes squeezed shut as he scratched at his forehead, suddenly recalled the tantrum Baek Ga-yoon had thrown at him earlier.

"A double...? Yes! We'll use a double."

"I'm sorry—a double?"

The baffled assistant director echoed the word. Wasn't footage shot with a stand-in limited in what it could carry?

"Those NG takes from earlier. We trim out the flubbed spots, use what's clean as the front-facing shots, then transition over to the stunt double from behind."

And the scene originally meant to close in on Lee Ha-yeon could be re-aimed at the villain without any real problem. The one delivering the lines was the villain anyway.

Besides, judging by Jung Ga-yoon's performance earlier, framing it to bare the villain's true face would build far more tension than lingering on the heroine's suffering.

"Ah—!"

The assistant director let out a gasp of admiration; he could apparently see the picture Director Kang was painting.

"That'll work, right? Get the stunt double out here!"

The assistant director bolted off to fetch her, and Director Kang turned to Jung Ga-yoon, who had stood at his side throughout.

"Actress Jung! You're the only one I trust! Let's do it just like before. Just like before!"

"Yes, Director."

It was a performance she had already dissected to the bone. Whoever stood opposite her, she could reproduce it exactly.

Jung Ga-yoon watched the stunt double come sprinting over and prepare for the shoot, then let her gaze drift toward the dressing room where Baek Ga-yoon had retreated.

I wonder how she's holding up?

She had hoped that filming this scene would rattle the woman, strip the composure right out of her opposite Ga-yoon's performance. But she hadn't imagined she would spiral into a panic this complete.

Had I ever felt this delicious a thrill at someone else's misfortune?

Serves her right.

A quiet snort escaped her; she hid the curl of her lips from prying eyes and ambled unhurriedly toward the stunt double.

"Cut! Okay!"

The shoot with the stunt double was complete.

"How does it look? Usable, Director?"

Jung Ga-yoon had stepped up beside Director Kang to watch the monitors.

"Uh—yeah. One moment, Actress Jung."

Director Kang was cutting the freshly shot scenes together right there on set, playing them back. On the screen, a party in full swing: Lee Ha-yeon, chatting with the guests around her, set down her champagne glass and drifted toward the balcony.

In the drama's final act, Lee Ha-yeon—revenge accomplished, career secured, love won—wore a face grown lighter, almost radiant.

Creeeak—

And with Na Yu-ju's entrance, cold as a draft through an open door, the mood on screen changed.

Director Kang had spliced Baek Ga-yoon's Lee Ha-yeon together with the stunt double's, piece by piece, permitting not an ounce of dissonance. From Na Yu-ju's face pouring out venomous emotion to the stunt double plummeting from the heights, it all flowed as one unbroken whole.

A little more polish, a layer of sound, and it would be perfect.

"Okay. I like it. What do you think, Actress Jung?"

She hadn't expected him to ask for her opinion. In high spirits, the corners of Jung Ga-yoon's mouth swept smoothly upward.

"I love it. It's perfect, Director!"

She stuck her thumb up cheerfully, and Director Kang burst into booming laughter. Still chuckling, satisfied, he gave her shoulder a grateful pat.

"You've worked so hard, right up to the very end, our Actress Jung."

"Not at all. I learned so much."

This had been Na Yu-ju's final day of shooting. Hearing Director Kang's thanks like this, a bittersweet ache came welling up in her.

"Ga-yoon!"

She turned at the voice behind her to find a staff member pressing a modest bouquet into her arms. The flowers' sweet fragrance soothed the ache of parting wonderfully.

"Thank you for going toe-to-toe with Actress Baek from day one and never once giving ground."

Whenever Baek Ga-yoon poisoned the mood on set, Jung Ga-yoon was always the one trying to smooth it back over. Her kindness and wit settled the frayed nerves of the staff in no time, letting them refocus on the work—and her acting, strong enough to earn clean, swift approvals, surely helped too. Anyone who gets you home early is precious, always.

Besides, nothing binds the survivors of a set together quite like a common enemy, does it?

"Honestly? Of every set I've ever worked, this one was the worst."

Director Kang frowned and jerked his chin toward the dressing room. Nobody needed telling who had made it the worst.

"Thanks to you, it was bearable. Thank you."

"Get some good rest, and I'll see you at the wrap party. I'll grill the meat myself—even better than that food truck you sent over last time!"

"Great work out there! Let's do another one together sometime!"

The staff crowded around, each adding a word of their own. These people, honestly. Are they trying to make me cry? The last day of a drama shoot never failed to leave her heart wistful. All the hard work they'd shared flickered past like a panorama, you could say.

"I'm the one who's grateful."

With tears shimmering in her eyes, Jung Ga-yoon wrapped filming on The Terms of Inheritance.

Jung Ga-yoon returned home. Sitting before her vanity mirror, she checked the time she had left.

She had performed with the full, deliberate intent to kill. Perhaps because it had been acting rather than the real thing, she had gained a measly ten days. And the filming days had slipped by all the while, so the time remaining to her was—

Tick, tock, tick. The passing time felt unbearably cruel.

"Ha... a fortnight."

Letting out a long sigh, she rose from the vanity and headed for the living room, where several scripts lay spread across the table. She needed to settle on her next project, and fast.

She had asked for projects she could actually audition for—anything but the interchangeable roles she'd been shown last time.

"Not one proper sinner in the bunch."

The cookie-cutter villain roles would be locked in the moment she said yes, and that was exactly why she hesitated. None of them were roles that actually committed villainy, scene to scene.

Honestly, a serial killer or a terrorist would suit her far better—but such parts almost never made their way to actresses. That was the trouble.

"What am I to do?"

Fifteen days. Dawdle even a little, and it would vanish in a blink. She had pressed her agency once more to hunt for a script with a truly searing villain, so for now, the best she could do was narrow the incoming stack down to the roles with the longest list of misdeeds.

"Hey. Evil spirit."

She called out to it. There were things she wanted to ask, but since that day, the spirit had not made a sound.

Fifteen days—she'd thought it a fair stretch from the twelve hours she'd started with. But how much stronger was she now, compared to the day she died and came back? And once she grew as strong as she could grow, would the evil spirit be able to adjust her lifespan at its own whim? She wanted to know, too, whether she was fated to live out her days tethered to the thing.

No telling whether its power hasn't recovered yet, or whether it's nursing some other scheme.

"Hm."

The wrap party was only days after The Terms of Inheritance finished filming. Baek Ga-yoon will be there too.

Should I ask her then?

She doubted she would get a willing answer, but she wanted to see Baek Ga-yoon's reaction—about the evil spirit, or the reason the woman had killed her. Toss out the question, and even a wordless answer would tell her something.

Four days later, on the night the final episode of The Terms of Inheritance aired, the production staff and cast alike filed into the barbecue restaurant booked for the occasion.

"Jung Ga-yoon! Over here!"

Someone called out warmly as she came in, having greeted the reporters staked out by the entrance. It was Ahn Ji-ho, the male lead of The Terms of Inheritance. And sitting in front of him, wearing a face like a drawn blade, was Baek Ga-yoon.

"Hello, Senior."

Jung Ga-yoon offered her greeting and took the seat beside her; Baek Ga-yoon turned her head and shot her a sidelong glare.

Watching the frost settle between the two of them, Ahn Ji-ho leaned in with a face full of glee.

"I heard you two had one monster of a fight?"