[“Popular webtoon ‘Save My Beloved Second Lead!’ to be adapted into a drama – Cast and air date?”]
[Drama adaptation confirmed for ‘Save My Beloved Second Lead!’ – Netizens focus on fan casting]
It must be a pretty popular webtoon—there were quite a few articles about the drama adaptation.
But that was it.
“Even these are from a year ago.”
The adaptation was announced, but no follow-up information had been released.
It meant casting hadn’t been easy.
Still, if it was a well-known work, how could casting have been so difficult?
Tilting my head in curiosity, I looked up the original webtoon.
The moment I saw the cover, I could kind of understand why.
On the cover were a boy and girl wearing school uniforms.
“So it’s a school story.”
If it was a school setting with a hint of fantasy, that made sense.
That genre isn’t exactly known for mass appeal.
“The fact that this project eventually landed on Yoo Chaemin—”
It meant a lot of actors had already turned it down.
The production team must’ve run out of options and settled on me.
“The meeting might not go that smoothly.”
If they thought my acting was really bad, the worst-case scenario was that they’d cancel the casting altogether.
Even if that didn’t happen… well, I had to prepare for the possibility that the director wouldn’t think too highly of me.
“I mean, who wants a bad actor in their project?”
I get it.
But that doesn’t mean I can accept the way some directors treat actors like they’re less than human just because they’re not good.
“Sigh…”
Rubbing my eyelids, I started reading the webtoon.
To really understand the story, I had to go through both the original and the adapted script.
***
Before I knew it, it was 5 a.m.
“This is… actually good.”
That was my first impression after binge-reading the webtoon.
One day, the female protagonist wakes up to find herself possessed by the heroine of her favorite webtoon.
She faithfully follows the original story and ends up with the main male lead.
Thinking the story is now over, she expects to return to her real world—but instead, she’s sent back to the very first chapter.
After repeating the same story several times, strange things start happening.
Buildings that once existed disappear, and background characters turn into complete strangers.
As the possessed heroine and the central figure of the story, ‘Han Yeoreum’ is the first to notice something’s wrong.
Then she discovers a shocking truth:
“This world is disappearing because the story is over.”
Unless something changes, everything will vanish.
Even Yeoreum, who possessed the protagonist, won’t be able to return and will disappear forever.
To preserve this world, they must make the story real.
And to do that, the characters need “will.”
The catch? That “will” only forms when a character realizes what they truly want—
Not what the writer programmed them to want, but what they themselves desire.
Upon hearing this, Yeoreum has a sudden realization:
“I… I actually loved the second male lead!”
As she accepts her true feelings, Yeoreum begins deviating from the original plot.
To stop the world and its people from disappearing, she works to awaken their “will.”
Even for the second male lead she now loves—Yoon Jihwa.
Thanks to her efforts, the story is preserved, and the world becomes real.
She ends up with Jihwa, who once wished not to disappear even if she didn’t love him back—
And the story concludes with a happy ending.
“It’s fun… but I get why casting was hard.”
It had a complicated world-building that wasn’t easy to translate into drama.
Possession is tricky to portray visually.
On top of that, it’s a school drama.
“I wonder how they adapted it.”
I immediately pulled the script out of my bag.
By the time I finished reading it, the sun was rising outside the window.
“The adaptation’s… surprisingly good.”
Complicated or hard-to-film concepts were boldly cut.
Yet the story wasn’t unrecognizable—they reshaped the pacing to fit a drama format.
With the right direction and visuals, this could actually be a decent show.
“It might not get high ratings, but people will call it well-made.”
Assuming, of course, that the actors’ performances hold up.
The role I’d been given was ‘Lee Hyuk’—the original main male lead from the webtoon.
As the name suggests, he’s a typical, slightly cliché male lead straight out of an internet romance novel.
A rich kid with a wounded heart who behaves badly.
Though he finds healing through the female lead, he isn’t exactly kind-hearted.
“If anything, he hurts her the most.”
From the moment he enters the story, most of the heroine’s pain is caused by him.
Still, he ends up being the one she chooses—your classic bad-boy type.
Except in this story, the heroine realizes she loved the gentle second lead all along and completely dumps Hyuk.
He eventually becomes almost a villain, trying to sabotage Yeoreum and Jihwa—Then finally accepts it and walks away.
Though technically the main lead, he doesn’t get even a sliver of hope from Yeoreum once she realizes her feelings.
“Unlike Yeoreum and Jihwa, who break out of clichés, Hyuk sticks to his archetype until the end.”
That’s the kind of character he is.
Maybe that’s why the role came to Yoo Chaemin.
Actually, I’m pretty sure that’s why.
Both the webtoon and the script describe Lee Hyuk as a “classic handsome man,” with “sharp features” and a “bold presence.”
That didn’t really match Yoo Chaemin’s image.
Chaemin was good-looking, sure—but not in that bold, classic-male-lead way.
So why give him this role?
“Were they just casting for looks and ignoring the image? That can’t be it.”
Realistically, they were probably just out of options.
But if you look at it in terms of appearance alone, I should’ve been cast as Yoon Jihwa.
And yet I got Lee Hyuk.
The reason’s pretty clear.
Not sure how else to say it, but—They gave me the easier role.
Though to be clear, there’s no such thing as an “easy” role in acting.
Every character is layered, has duality, and evolves with the story.
And Lee Hyuk is no exception—the script did a good job of capturing that.
With a skilled actor, he could be quite compelling.
However, even if those aspects weren’t well expressed, it wasn’t a character whose core identity would be completely ruined.
That’s why the role ended up going to Yoo Chaemin, the actor infamous for his terrible acting.
Even if he just frowned the entire time and pretended to be heartbreakingly regretful at the end, it wouldn’t ruin the overall narrative.
“But for me, this could be an opportunity.”
My job ranking was still E, and there was no realistic way to gain job points quickly.
But even if the sky falls, there’s always a way out.
I thought about an item I recently purchased from “Karma Mall.” If I used it well…
“I could get one step closer to completing this ridiculous quest.”
Yes, this quest:
[Main Quest] Turn ‘Yoo Chaemin’ into a recognized, successful actor.
Deadline: Until quest is complete
Reward: 99,999,999 Karma
Failure Penalty: None
I still couldn’t believe it.
A quest to make Yoo Chaemin into a respected, successful actor.
It seemed like this was the ultimate goal of the “job” I’d been assigned.
“And the reward was exactly the price of the resignation permit.”
I could either complete small quests to collect 99,999,999 Karma bit by bit, or fulfill this final objective and buy the resignation permit in one go.
“So the ultimate goal is turning a terrible actor into a masterful one…”
I had no idea why the system chose such a goal.
And honestly, I didn’t need to know.
The only thing that mattered was this:
“My goal now is to quit.”
I had never worked in an actual company before, and even now, I didn’t feel like I truly was…
“But here I am.”
Anyway, that’s how it was.
***
While I was preparing for the meeting on my own, time flew by.
During that period, no one came looking for Yoo Chaemin.
The manager said there were no other scheduled activities until the meeting and promptly disappeared.
I was worried he might contact me unnecessarily or show up and bother me, but thankfully, that didn’t happen.
And so, the day of the meeting arrived.
I picked the neatest outfit Yoo Chaemin owned—something that gave off a school uniform vibe.
His fashion sense, by my standards, was a bit eccentric, so it wasn’t easy to find something appropriate.
“How is it possible to have only one plain white shirt without any weird embellishments?”
Yoo Chaemin really needed to understand how lucky he was to have a good-looking face.
The meeting location was the production company’s headquarters—a building with no signboard but a giant yellow egg painted on the exterior.
After being guided in by a staff member, I entered the conference room.
The director and writer were already there, waiting, and they greeted me and the manager.
“Oh, welcome.”
“Haha! Oh, Director, nice to meet you. I’m Im Seokgu, team leader at BS Entertainment.”
Before I could say a word, the manager jumped in first.
He smiled brightly—an expression I’d never seen before—and shouted so loudly that the conference room echoed.
The director looked clearly startled by the unexpected volume, but the manager was focused solely on handing over his business card.
“Director, would you please accept my card?”
“Ah… sure.”
The director took it with a weary face and left it on the table in front of him instead of putting it away.
“Well, um… shall we start with the acting?”
Only then did the director’s gaze, which had been fixed on the manager, turn to me.
He scrutinized my face carefully, like he was trying to evaluate something, and then smiled awkwardly.
“Did you prepare anything?”
His voice didn’t contain even a hint of expectation.
As someone who had lived as an actor for a while, I couldn’t help but feel a little hurt.
But only for a moment—because instead, I felt strangely at ease.
In the past, I used to lose sleep and become unbearably sensitive the day before a meeting or audition.
But now?
“Because I’m Yoo Chaemin right now.”
They expected nothing from me.
And that fact, for the first time in my acting life, gave me incredible comfort.
“Yes,” I answered with the most humble smile I could manage.
“Shall I start now?”
The director exchanged a glance with the writer and slowly nodded.
Their expressions still showed zero expectation.
***
Choi Younghwan, the director of Protect My Beloved Second Lead!, was simply exhausted.
As both a drama director and an employee of a production company, fatigue was a very familiar feeling.
But sometimes, you get those especially tiring days.
Unfortunately, today was one of them.
“Acting… it’s going to be as bad as expected, isn’t it.”