Disclaimer: The AN JELL-verse belongs to the Hong Sisters, creators of You're Beautiful. The title of this fic comes from the song by Eric Carmen, which was featured in the movie Dirty Dancing. I only own Ha-neul and her father, who don't even play a huge role in this story. Oh, and I guess Director Han, too.
Technical Notes: This is a missing moment from Chapter 13 of my current fic, This Above All. Reading that story before this one would most probably be helpful.
HUNGRY EYES
Director Han Yung-chul had been in the waiting room along with AN JELL and most of the crew, so he was there when So Ha-neul's father announced that she had to pull out of the production. With filming so tantalizingly close to completion, Yung-chul had been strongly tempted to argue, but the haunted look on the man's face made him reconsider.
Since there was nothing more they could do that day, he ordered the crew to pack up the set, and returned to his own offices intending to start a rough cut of the video.
Ahn Sung-chan, AN JELL's manager and head of AN Entertainment, asked if he could come along. Yung-chul wasn't really in the mood to talk to clients, but President Ahn appeared more concerned about what had happened to the girl than about putting out a video as soon as possible, so the director supposed it was all right.
"I told Mr. So that we would just use a stand-in for the rest of filming," said President Ahn as they sat in the editing room, looking through the footage that had already been shot. "Will that be possible, or do we need to re-shoot everything?"
"I think I can work with a stand-in for the final scenes," Yung-chul replied, his eyes intent on the screen. "I'll need to re-work the storyboard so we don't show the stand-in's face, but it can be done."
"Yes, please do that. Thank you, Director Han."
"But I guess this means we won't be able to have a different ending for the video after all," the director sighed.
"Yes, I'm afraid so."
"At least I didn't get the chance to tell the cast about it and get them all excited over nothing," he consoled himself.
"What ending did you have in mind?" President Ahn asked curiously. "I mean... if we can't use it for this video, maybe we can include it in the concept for a future one."
"Perhaps we could!" Yung-chul agreed, brightening. His idea could be applied to a number of different storylines. How clever of him to have thought of it!
"Director... your idea, please?"
"Hmm? Oh, yes, my idea!" He paused for effect. (Being a director, he knew all about effect!) "I thought it would have been interesting if Tae-kyung's character lost his girl because Ha-neul's character had run off with Shin-woo's!"
The other man blinked. "What?" he asked blankly. "How did you come up with that?"
"It's simple, President Ahn," Yung-chul said, managing to contain his impatience. (The man signed the checks, after all.) "I started going through the footage yesterday," he went on as he inserted another videotape into the editing machine, "and noticed something interesting."
He sped through the footage from the first day of shooting, a café scene in which Ha-neul, the band and some extras were laughing and joking around, pretending to be at a friendly gathering, and paused at a closeup of Ha-neul looking wistfully over her shoulder. "Do you see her looking at Shin-woo here?"
"I see her looking at someone or something," the manager confirmed, "but I don't know for sure if she's looking at him in particular."
"Ah, but wait!" He went through the footage again and paused at a frame showing Shin-woo and Mi-nam standing at the bar. In it, Shin-woo was clearly looking at Ha-neul, who was talking and laughing with Tae-kyung in the foreground. Shin-woo's shoulders lifted in a small sigh and he looked away, just as Ha-neul stopped laughing and stole a glance back at him. "There are some more portions like this in the other tapes," he said. "I can show them to you if you like."
President Ahn looked thoughtfully at the screen. "Was this part of your instructions, for them to steal looks at each other?"
"No. I came up with the idea of the new ending after seeing it happen a few times." He sighed ruefully. "It's too bad we can't have an alternate ending for the video. There would have been some good material to work with if we had decided to do it."
"Yes," the other man agreed with a small smile. "It's too bad indeed."