‘Expectation’ is a shortcut to betraying oneself.
Even knowing this, we constantly harbor expectations. The heart’s desire to cling to even the smallest possibility might be close to a human instinct.
“Writer, a reply came from NBN.”
Seo Sun-ae quietly forwarded the email she had received to me.
As I opened the email, a phrase I had become quite familiar with lately caught my eye.
[We are sending you a polite refusal.]
I stared at the sentence for a long time before eventually nodding.
It was expected. No, I was almost certain of it.
“You can just delete it.”
NBN, UBS, EBC, TBC, and ENE. We had already sent the proposal to every station possible, including terrestrial, major cable, and general programming channels.
A refined proposal, two episodes’ worth of pilot scripts, the production crew’s profiles, and a budget plan.
Ten years ago, this material would have earned us an invitation to their offices for a meeting.
However, not a single positive response came back. Or, to be more precise, everything was a rejection.
“Well, we expected it anyway,” Seo Sun-ae said with a bitter smile.
She wasn’t the only one.
Im Seong-hee, Pyeong Chang-su, and Jeong Tae-mi likely had lingering expectations as well, even if they didn’t speak them aloud.
The moment those hopes were crushed, the atmosphere in the meeting room sank heavily.
I also closed my laptop with an expressionless face.
I took a sip of coffee and spoke in a light voice, as if I weren’t disappointed at all.
“Well, it can’t be helped. Let’s look for other broadcasters then.”
As I spoke casually, everyone looked up.
Seo Sun-ae asked cautiously with a look that seemed to say ‘What do you mean?’
“Um… Writer, there are no more places to send it. We’ve already sent it to all the major broadcasters.”
I nodded and replied.
“That’s true. But we haven’t sent it to the IPTV side yet.”
A sudden silence fell.
Everyone’s expressions distorted simultaneously, and some even let out awkward laughs.
They looked like they were wondering if I was joking.
“…IPTV?” Seo Sun-ae asked back.
Im Seong-hee kept her mouth shut, and Pyeong Chang-su put down the paper cup he had been drinking from.
Everyone’s voices burst out a beat late.
“Who does dramas on IPTV these days?”
“Setting aside the drama, are there even people who watch IPTV lately?”
“Even so, IPTV hasn’t completely disappeared,” I said dismissively, and silence fell once more.
“I haven’t even heard of them doing dramas over there…”
“So wouldn’t that actually be an opportunity?”
I turned the monitor around and showed everyone the search bar.
There were almost no results for the keyword ‘IPTV original drama.’
But an absence meant an empty seat.
Since no one had occupied that space yet, it could become an opportunity.
“Now, look here. There are several content-specialized channels within the IPTV networks. The broadcasters are small, but the channel numbers are still active.”
“…Don’t they have no budget, no viewership ratings, and not even any staff over there?”
“We don’t have any options right now. In a situation like this, what’s important isn’t the possibility, but the ‘attempt’.”
Someone might call it reckless.
However, now that everyone had turned their backs on us, we had to start from the bottom all over again.
“Here. This Aladdin TV. It’s the oldest among the IPTV networks.”
This time, I pulled up Aladdin TV’s homepage to show them.
Clunky flash animations and an old interface.
A main page where an error message popped up with a single click.
It was an aged site that clearly showed the passage of time.
“Wow, this place… This is where they used to show old Chinese dramas. I guess it’s still alive,” Seo Sun-ae muttered as if surprised.
“Since it’s still alive, we can at least send an email.”
I laughed.
I didn’t laugh because the situation was funny, but because this was the only thing we could do right now.
And strangely, it felt a little cathartic.
“If we’re going to fail anyway, let’s fail spectacularly.”
***
An old two-story building in Gayang-dong, Seoul.
The sign was half-hanging off, and the logo on the glass door was faded and crooked.
It was a place where no one would ever imagine a ‘broadcasting station’ was located.
However, this was the headquarters of the IPTV broadcaster, Aladdin TV.
In the second-floor meeting room, the window frames were warped due to the dilapidated facilities, causing a severe draft even though it was winter.
The heater had broken last winter, and they kept the heaters off to save on electricity bills.
It was a situation where they had to hold meetings while warming their backsides with electric seat cushions they had brought from home.
“The average viewership rating for variety shows this quarter… came out to 0.13%.”
The one who spoke was Manager Jeong from the Variety Drama Department.
He flipped through the presentation slides and continued speaking with a forced, awkward smile.
“It went up by 0.01% since last quarter. It’s a miracle.”
“What miracle? It’s an illusion,” Director Choi retorted without even a smile.
Performance reports came around every month, but no one felt anything anymore.
They wondered if there could be a bottom lower than this, but strangely, the viewership ratings were steadily disappearing, bit by bit, by 0.01% each time.
Of course, this wasn’t just limited to the variety side.
“What about documentaries?” Manager Hong asked.
“…It’s 0.07%. A 0.03% drop from last quarter.”
A suffocating silence followed, so quiet that the sound of the old fluorescent lights flickering could be heard.
It felt as though the temperature inside the already cold meeting room had dropped several more degrees.
“Are we really going to close down next year?”
No one could refute the words Manager Hong tossed out in a self-deprecating, joking tone.
“The only thing that gets any ratings is the trot show reruns, but I heard TBC raised the copyright unit price again.”
“It’s tight for us to even give 50 million for copyright fees, but they’re buying them for over 100 million.”
“At least they re-edit them to turn them into variety shows and use the studio. We just broadcast the feed.”
“Why are we called the Variety Drama Department if we can’t even produce anything?”
Everyone threw out a comment, but the lines were closer to resignation than complaints.
Veterans in their tenth, seventh, and sixth years.
Most of them had been pushed out from cable or regional stations, and they seemed to have no lingering affection for an organization that had been steadily collapsing for a long time.
Amidst this, there was one person sitting quietly in the corner of the meeting room.
PD Nam Hui-seong. A Director-level PD in his fourteenth year.
He was an elite PD who had once handled quite substantial variety sub-segments in the CL line.
He had moved here after being lured by a senior’s words: “If you just hang in there, they’ll make you a Department Head!”
However, it had now become his routine to start his day by logging in to job search sites every morning.
Today, it seemed the meeting without results or achievements would continue.
Reckless scores, meaningless briefings, and pointless performance graphs.
While everyone was growing exhausted…
Knock, knock, knock.
Someone tapped cautiously on the meeting room door.
“Um… I’m sorry to interrupt the meeting.”
“Huh? Hye-in. What is it?”
“I have a matter I absolutely must report to the Director.”
The person who opened the door and entered was Writer Lee Hye-in, the youngest of the team.
Of course, she was also a proper professional in her fourth year, but since not a single new recruit had joined, she was still called the youngest.
She was quiet and introverted, so her presence was usually small, but she had been quietly playing an important role within the team.
Organizing items, writing meeting minutes, copying scripts, checking time codes, and clipping data.
She was more meticulous than anyone else and never let a single document pass by carelessly.
She was the type who didn’t speak much but was quick-witted and fast with her hands.
Among her seniors, she was someone who had built up a subtle trust as ‘the one who doesn’t talk much but works well.’
Nam Hui-seong said they should take a short break and followed Lee Hye-in out of the meeting room to sit at his desk in front of the door.
“What’s going on?”
“Um, a script came in.”
Now that he looked, Lee Hye-in was cradling a stack of photocopied scripts in her arms with a cautious look.
The paper was quite thick because she hadn’t done double-sided copying.
The moment Nam Hui-seong saw it, he let out a small sigh in spite of himself.
“Hye-in, I told you we have to save on supplies. Unless it’s something special, you should always use the back of scrap paper for A4. You usually do that, don’t you?”
There was a hint of saltiness in his tone, but he didn’t look angry.
The reality of this company was that they now had to worry about using even a single sheet of paper.
Lee Hye-in smiled awkwardly and bowed her head.
“I know, but I didn’t think I should print this on scrap paper.”
“Just how great is it?”
Nam Hui-seong turned his head and reached out his hand.
As he was about to flip the first page of the copied script, his movements stopped the moment he saw a familiar name.
[Title: The Bumbling Twelve Zodiacs]
[Written by: Lee Junghyuk]
As soon as Nam Hui-seong read that name, he furrowed his brows.
“Lee Junghyuk… That Lee Junghyuk?”
His mind became complicated for a moment.
It was definitely a name he had heard. A writer who had once won awards at Baeksang and hit a peak viewership rating of 37% with a terrestrial weekend drama.
However, he was a writer about whom grim rumors had been circulating in the industry recently.
Perhaps because of that, he was a star writer who hadn’t been able to release a new work for a while despite being in his prime.
But even so, it was nonsensical for a writer of Lee Junghyuk’s caliber to send a script to Aladdin TV.
‘It couldn’t be someone with the same name, could it?’
The PD first flipped the page.
He quickly scanned the character introductions, background, and the first scene.
[Scene 1 – The yard of an isolated house in a rural village]
A circular altar is on the ground.
In the center, there is a black chicken, a mortar, and a mat that hasn’t been cleared away yet.
Seora, the second daughter who serves the divine power of the ‘Rabbit God’, is offering a prayer.
Beside her, the uncle who serves the ‘Chicken God’ scratches the back of his head.
“…What is this?”
At first, a dry laugh escaped him.
Still, thinking of the value of the name Lee Junghyuk, he calmly turned the page.
There were twelve characters. They were members of a bizarre family, each serving one of the twelve zodiac signs.
From the rat to the pig. Even the eldest brother who serves the dog is a police officer at a sub-station.
“It’s a total cult…”
However, the writing had a strange rhythm to it.
There was no forced attempt to be funny, and the dialogue induced laughter through the ‘situation’ itself rather than being overtly comedic.
[Uncle]
“The Chicken God hasn’t said a word since yesterday evening. He’s definitely angry. I wonder if it’s because I ate chicken breast…”
[Seora]
“Eating the body is sacrilege, Uncle.”
Nam Hui-seong’s eyebrows went up once more.
For the first time, he leaned back in his chair and straightened his spine.
The setting was nonsensical, and the title was ridiculous, but above all, the writing was interesting.
It was the power to make a nonsensical setting make sense and to make people love ridiculous characters.
It wasn’t just that it was neatly organized; it was thanks to the writing skills that had incredible timing.
The speed began to pick up as he turned the pages one by one.
[Scene 12 – The Marketplace]
The third son who serves the ‘Dragon God’ runs while holding young radish kimchi.
Behind him, the father who serves the ‘Ox God’ chases him on a bicycle.
The residents regard this bizarre chase as just a part of daily life.
Chuckles leaked out. He kept turning the pages.
‘Lee Junghyuk… Is it true that this person really wrote this?’
He slowly stood up from his seat.
“Hye-in.”
Lee Hye-in flinched and looked back.
“Did you… read this first, Hye-in?”
“Yes, I found it late while I was working overtime and tidying up yesterday… At first, I thought it would just be filtered out, but strangely, I kept reading it.”
“…You did well.”
Nam Hui-seong said quietly. It was a sincere compliment.
Entering the meeting room again, he brought in all the scripts he had copied by the boxful.
“Everyone, put aside the performance issues for a moment and look at this first.”
At Director Nam Hui-seong’s words, everyone bowed their heads and began reading the scripts in silence.
It was a strange story. A sitcom featuring a family that seemed like a cult.
However, it was insanely fun.
Even if they were employees of a failing IPTV station, they were still veterans and had an ‘eye’ for these things.
If this were to be broadcast, it was a script that would produce all sorts of memes and clips, flooding the internet as well as various parodies and advertisements.
However, if there was one problem…
‘Do people like us have the guts to take something like this?’
Nam Hui-seong closed the last page.
‘The End.’
The moment he read those two words, he let out a breath in spite of himself.
The chilly lethargy that had filled the meeting room just a moment ago had faded slightly.
He slowly put down the script and tapped his fingertips on the desk.
In the silence, it felt as though the layers of old dust were starting to move little by little.
“…This is fun.”
He wasn’t speaking to anyone in particular. He was just talking to himself.
However, Manager Jeong in the next seat slightly turned his head.
“I found it fun too. No, to be honest, it’s the best script I’ve seen lately.”
“You think so too, Manager Jeong?”
Nam Hui-seong stood up. He straightened his body and stretched.
Suddenly, he could see outside the window. A bit of sunlight was seeping through the hazy clouds.
He picked up the script again. The name written on the cover.
Lee Junghyuk.
Those three characters looked exceptionally clear.
“Is it certain that it was sent from Lee Junghyuk’s side?” Nam Hui-seong muttered with a face that still couldn’t believe it.
“Yes. I checked the sender’s email ID, the signature, and the production company. It’s definitely Writer Lee Junghyuk,” Lee Hye-in said cautiously.
Upon hearing her words, Manager Jeong straightened up at his desk.
“Then you’re saying that person sent a script to us right now? To our Aladdin TV?”
“I guess so. But why?”
“What is it? That’s strange. Could he have sent it to the wrong place by mistake?”
“Hey, where else is there a broadcasting station with a dated name like ours that he could confuse it with?”
The meeting room began to stir for the first time in a while.
Some laughed and some were suspicious, but what was clear was that the atmosphere of the meeting room, which had been like a funeral home, had changed.
Nam Hui-seong quietly took out his smartphone and opened his inbox.
He then hesitated whether or not to press the phone number for ‘God Media’ that was written in the email.
‘If we really do this… how will we film it? What about the budget? The programming?’
Dozens of problems swirled in his head.
However, above all that, a single thought rose up.
‘This might be content that only we can do.’
The mind of PD Nam, a fourteen-year veteran of broadcasting, spun at a high speed.
The reason a script of this caliber came all the way here to Aladdin might actually be for a simple reason.
‘It’s probably because no other broadcasting station would accept this script.’
He knew well of the ill-fated relationship between CL and Lee Junghyuk.
He also knew the recent trends of CL Media. Even if he had become a backroom old-timer, he still possessed that much information.
So right now, he was the first gateway for this story.
Nam Hui-seong immediately took out his phone and dialed the number.
“Hello. This is PD Nam Hui-seong from Aladdin TV’s Variety Drama Department.”
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