To understand why Lee Min-jun chose the role of ‘Park Dae-ri,’ one had to go back to the void. It began, as most things did now, the moment he examined the white rectangle labeled ‘Profiler Hanryang.’
-[5/Script (Title: Profiler Hanryang Part 1), Grade A]
-[This is a drama script with a very high degree of completion. 100% immersion is possible.]
Standing alone in the endless, dark expanse, Min-jun crossed his arms and stroked his chin. The short film ‘Exorcism’ floating beside him was a Grade B. This was his first time seeing a Grade A. A question naturally formed on his lips.
“Hmm… If this is Grade A… is that the highest? Or is there something better?”
Even if there were higher tiers, Grade A was clearly near the top. In other words, this new project by writer Park Eunmi had a high chance of success.
“‘Lawless Justice’ was Grade C and got about a seven percent viewership rating, right? Grade A is two levels higher… so it should clear ten percent? Maybe fifteen?”
He couldn’t be sure. There was no way to know how much of a gap each grade represented. Realizing this, Min-jun quickly shifted his focus.
“Well, whatever. This will be another experiment, then. A test to see what these grades actually mean.”
It would determine whether this ‘grade’ was a true glimpse into the future. For now, it seemed likely, but nothing was certain.
Next, Lee Min-jun’s gaze shifted to the title.
“‘Profiler Hanryang.’ I’m not sure, but with ‘profiler’ in the name, it must be a crime drama or something similar.”
He recalled the words of the famous director, Han Jae-hyuk, from the world outside.
‘I want to cast you, Min-jun.’
His mind had blanked at the time, but here in the void, Min-jun was composed enough to think it through. He arrived at a reasonable conclusion.
“It’s probably just a small part.”
He didn’t know much about the entertainment industry, but he knew that rookies and unknowns started as extras. That had to be especially true for a production helmed by giants like Director Han Jae-hyuk and Writer Park Eunmi. To Min-jun, any minor part in a production was essentially an extra role; he was completely unaware of the nuances between supporting roles, cameos, and bit parts.
“Still… it’s not a bad opportunity.”
A positive thought bloomed in his mind, the second he’d had since first experiencing the ‘Scared Man’ in this very space. It would be good to get a proper evaluation from people at the top of their field.
Min-jun reached out and tapped the white rectangle for ‘Profiler Hanryang.’ Familiar text appeared beneath it.
-[You have selected 5/Script (Title: Profiler Hanryang Part 1).]
-[Listing characters available for immersion (experience).]
-[A: Yu Jihyeong, B: Jung Sangmin, C: Bae Sejun… E: Park Dae-ri]
What caught Lee Min-jun’s attention was the list of characters. There were about six of them.
“Hmm. The ones at the beginning are probably the main roles, the ones with the most lines. Park Dae-ri? Let’s go with that. It should have the least to say.”
From his previous experiments, Min-jun had learned that the roles listed last had the fewest lines, so he chose ‘Park Dae-ri.’
He touched the name on the list. A familiar female voice echoed through the void.
[“Preparing immersion for ‘E: Park Dae-ri’······”]
The wait was brief.
[“······Preparation complete. This is a script of exceptionally high quality. Implementation rate is 100%. Immersion will now begin.”]
In an instant, a vast grayness enveloped Lee Min-jun.
Someone’s loud voice rang out.
“Hey! Park Dae-ri! What are you doing? Let’s go!”
At that moment, the gray filling his vision slowly receded. Bit by bit, the world ahead swam into focus.
The location was a park, near a bench.
The weather was warm. Spring, maybe? The sunlight on his skin was pleasant, not harsh. A comfortable warmth. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt.
Around him, Lee Min-jun’s view broadened.
Flowerbeds were in full bloom and people jogged along the paths. Ahead, two men were waving at him.
The role’s instincts took over, and Min-jun found himself calling back. As the shout left his lips, he felt it: he was currently wearing a friendly smile.
But every word, every action, was a carefully constructed facade, completely devoid of sincerity.
His heart was cold and rational.
In fact, his rationality was absolute. It was as if emotion was the one asset he simply didn't possess.
Lee Min-jun had already become Park Dae-ri. He possessed everything that belonged to the man. And so, he knew.
‘Expression is a tool.’
To Park Dae-ri, expressions were mere packaging. He practiced them in his spare time. He memorized lines that would make him appear to be a ‘good person.’
Though a smile touched his lips, his eyes hid a chilling madness. Lee Min-jun twitched the corners of his mouth, practicing laughter.
Real joy, forced laughter, ecstatic glee.
It was his routine, something he did before returning to the office. After murmuring to himself for a moment, his face suddenly went blank.
The practice session was over. He had returned to his default state. Just like that, Lee Min-jun took a step, his heart a placid lake without a single ripple.
A moment later, a faint smile reappeared on his lips as he glanced down at his shoe.
“I stepped in dog shit.”
It wasn’t hard but soft and squishy. Fresh. Min-jun stopped, looking down at his shoe.
A hint of madness flickered in his eyes. A target had presented itself. He had been wronged. By a mere dog. With that thought, Lee Min-jun slowly turned his head, scanning the area.
“Oh, there it is. The mutt.”
He spotted it almost immediately.
A small dog was relieving itself in a nearby flowerbed. It had a leash around its neck, suggesting its owner had lost it. Lee Min-jun watched the puppy quietly, and then…
The world exploded into a palette of impossible colors.
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. His ordinary world had become a fairytale. The ground bled a royal purple, the trees a vibrant green. The sky was a black velvet canvas dotted with cobalt clouds, and all the people were painted in different hues. It felt like a scene from a children’s book.
But this was no bright fairytale. It was alien, a twisted, unsettling innocence.
It was like being trapped in a dream. On top of that, emotions he didn’t possess began to surface, and his mood shifted dramatically.
Where before there was only silence, Lee Min-jun now felt a manic excitement. Quick, quick, quick—an urgent need to do something pulsed through him.
The puppy, having finished its business, trotted over and rubbed against Min-jun’s leg. In Min-jun’s eyes, the puppy was a bright, cheerful yellow.
“You’re cute. So fluffy. Makes me want to just… pop you.”
Min-jun looked around. There were people everywhere. Too many eyes. He bent down, grabbed the puppy’s leash, and started walking.
Fortunately, the puppy followed obediently.
A public restroom stood nearby. Min-jun headed for the area behind it. He reeled in the leash and scooped the yellow puppy into his arms.
The puppy licked his cheek.
“You’re cute. But you shouldn’t poop on the path where people walk.”
Smiling, Min-jun lightly tapped the puppy’s nose. A red firecracker burst from the spot he touched, visible only to him.
This only amplified his excitement.
It was a kind of euphoria, a restless energy. Quick, quick, quick, he wanted to make more things pop. And so, cradling the yellow puppy, Min-jun disappeared behind the restroom.
A few minutes later, when he re-emerged, his face was calm.
“Ah, I’m a little late.”
His experience as ‘Park Dae-ri’ concluded, and Lee Min-jun was back in the meeting room. At the same time, a deep, frustrated curse echoed in his mind.
He felt a profound, lingering disgust. Everything about Park Dae-ri and his world was grating on his nerves. But the character was now etched into him.
The twenty minutes in the void had left him feeling like he’d just survived five hours of relentless motion sickness.
Park Dae-ri was both alien and intimately familiar.
He was a part of Lee Min-jun now, yet Min-jun felt a powerful urge to excise him, to scrub him away.
‘What is this? No, stay down.’
Lee Min-jun barely suppressed a wave of Park Dae-ri’s emotions that threatened to surface. It was an instinct. A defensive one.
At that moment, he was slightly dazed.
“Have you had a chance to look it over?”
The voice of writer Park Eunmi, sitting across from him, pulled him back. Min-jun’s vision slowly widened, and the writer’s words continued.
“Don’t feel pressured. You can act out any role, or even just a few lines. I just want to get a sense of your tone.”
Slightly flustered, Min-jun struggled to regain his composure.
‘Ah, right. This is where we were.’
He glanced down at the stack of paper in his hands: the script for part one of ‘Profiler Hanryang.’
‘It would be a bit much to start without even pretending to read it.’
Though he had already absorbed everything about Park Dae-ri, for the benefit of his audience, Lee Min-jun lowered his voice.
“I’ll just read for a moment.”
Of course, he didn’t read the script.
He just pretended to, for about five minutes. Then, a particular phrase in the script caught his eye.
-The world as seen by Park Dae-ri was awash with color, like a depiction of a manic dream garden.
‘So that’s why I saw all those crazy colors,’ Min-jun murmured to himself, letting out a small sigh.
He looked up and spoke calmly to the room.
“I’ll do the role of ‘Park Dae-ri.’”
As soon as Min-jun finished his sentence, something interesting happened.
Everyone on the other side of the table widened their eyes. Surprised? Why? The reactions from PD Han Jae-hyuk and writer Park Eunmi were particularly strong.
But Min-jun just reaffirmed his choice with a serious tone.
“Yes, the role of ‘Park Dae-ri.’”
PD Han Jae-hyuk, with his distinctive goatee, stared at Min-jun before turning to look at Park Eunmi. She was already looking back at him.
The two exchanged a silent, meaningful glance. Min-jun found it a little strange.
‘What’s with them? Are they communicating with their eyes?’
They really were industry titans if they could communicate with just a look. Then, PD Han Jae-hyuk’s expression hardened as he turned back to lock eyes with Min-jun.
“Which scene from Park Dae-ri’s part?”
No need to pick a later scene; the character only grew more complex. Min-jun chose a relatively simple part from the beginning.
“I’ll do the scene where the puppy appears.”
Park Eunmi, who had put on a pair of glasses at some point, addressed the director.
“PD-nim, please handle the camera perspective. Min-jun-ssi, please act as if the PD is the camera.”
There were, in fact, already cameras in the conference room—one behind Min-jun and one near the window in front of him. Acknowledging her instruction, Lee Min-jun handed the script he was holding back to her.
She took it, her brow furrowed in confusion.
“You can… do it without looking?”
It just seemed more convenient. The action had been unconscious, not a deliberate attempt to seem tough. For him, having already become Park Dae-ri, reading the script would be more of a hindrance than a help.
However, this simple act amplified the misunderstanding of everyone in the room, Park Eunmi included.
‘Did he grasp the dialogue, stage directions, and emotional beats in just a few minutes? That’s impossible, isn’t it?’
It was possible. Of course, it was only possible for Lee Min-jun. To everyone else, it was incomprehensible.
‘Is he bluffing? No, he seems too relaxed for that.’
“Alright, let’s do it that way. We’ll start right now.”
PD Han Jae-hyuk leaned forward, delivering the first line to Lee Min-jun, signaling the start of the scene.
“Hey! Park Dae-ri! What are you doing? Let’s go!”
Lee Min-jun, who had been staring intently at the director’s goatee, blinked once. In that same instant, the corner of Han Jae-hyuk’s eye twitched.
‘His gaze changed. His entire presence shifted.’
A faint madness, absent from Lee Min-jun’s previously calm eyes, now sparked within them. The difference before and after he blinked was night and day. He had summoned the character’s essence in a fraction of a second.
At least, that’s what Han Jae-hyuk saw.
Regardless, Min-jun, still looking at the director, lifted the corners of his mouth. The smile was small, trembling slightly, but the unnerving intensity in his eyes remained.
As soon as the line was delivered, the smile vanished from his lips. It was like watching a face go blank in slow motion.
Soon, he was completely expressionless. Then a smile reappeared. Then back to expressionless. Then another smile. The cycle repeated several times, each iteration different from the last. Psychopath. He radiated the chilling air of a psychopath.
For some reason, the top actress Yoon Hyeyeon felt goosebumps rise on her arms.
‘Each smile has a different texture.’
It was terrifying. Lee Min-jun was giving each smile a different meaning—through tiny tremors in the muscles around his eyes, a slight tilt of his head, the precise angle of his lips.
‘Was… was all of that conveyed just through his facial expression?’
Then Lee Min-jun, wearing one of his chosen smiles, slowly rose from his chair. He paused, looking down at his feet. A brief silence descended.
That short, heavy silence seemed to swallow all the air in the conference room. Min-jun’s stillness and indifference morphed into a palpable, ambiguous sense of dread. At that moment, he twisted his shoe as if to check the sole.
“I stepped in dog shit.”
He looked around, scanning the conference room before his gaze briefly flickered over to writer Park Eunmi.
Finally, his eyes met PD Han Jae-hyuk’s. They now gleamed with not just madness, but a predatory excitement. A low voice, laced with a spine-chilling chuckle, emerged from his throat.
“Ah, there it is. That little son of a bitch.”
That was it. Lee Min-jun, who had stood up, sat back down in his chair. He cleared his throat and spoke, his voice cool and low once more. He had returned from Park Dae-ri to Lee Min-jun.
‘So… how was that?’
And then it happened.
Across from him, writer Park Eunmi, her long, permed hair tied back, shot to her feet. Her gaze was fixed on Lee Min-jun as she approached him, a mesmerized look on her face.
Lee Min-jun instinctively leaned back.
‘What’s with her? She’s a little scary. Is she angry?’
Suddenly, Park Eunmi was standing right in front of him. She abruptly grabbed both of his hands.
Lee Min-jun was internally repulsed.
‘What—why is she doing this?!’
But Park Eunmi, one of the most celebrated writers in Korea, ignored the stunned looks from everyone else. She leaned in close, her voice filled with a desperate plea.
“Please, take the role of Park Dae-ri. It has to be you, Min-jun.”