"I... take the blame?"

"Yeah. Think about it. All three of them are flawed. They're distorted personalities who never properly formed a stable sense of self in childhood. If people like that met in real life, what kind of chemical reaction would occur?"

Peter Pan.

A selfish adult with no sense of responsibility or empathy, consumed only by the desire to show himself off.

Hook.

A twisted adult plagued by inferiority, incapable of honesty and full of contradictions.

Wendy.

A passive adult with low self esteem who depends on others for validation.

They had never achieved emotional maturity.

Yet time had passed regardless, and they had become adults.

What kind of tragedy would emerge from such a combination of people—the sort one could easily find all around them in everyday life?

"The conflict would mostly happen... between Peter Pan and Hook, right?"

"Exactly. Peter Pan is impulsive, self centered, and lacking in self control, so he's the most likely to cause trouble. Then he'll avoid responsibility and turn to Wendy."

As Yu Myeong examined himself through Peter Pan's perspective, Su Yeon found herself shrinking inward.

"Wendy. You take the blame for it."

"What?! I... I didn't do anything... You did it..."

"You said you'd be my mother."

"Huh?... R-right. Wendy is Peter's mother."

"A mother is devoted to her child. If a child steals candy from a store, the mother pays for it. If Wendy were really my mother, she'd tell Hook that she was the one who broke his arm."

It was absurd.

A completely unreasonable demand.

But Wendy...

If Wendy was the pitiful Wendy who tried far too hard to live up to other people's expectations...

"O-okay. I'm Peter's mother, after all!"

She would agree.

And with that, Peter Pan would become even more reckless.

Wendy would become even more controlled by the expectations of others.

The meeting of immature people only accelerated their immaturity.

"So that's the theme of the play in the end."

This wasn't a heartwarming story about fairy tale characters trapped in a psychiatric ward overcoming their wounds and growing into better people.

It was a story about their problems worsening as they became entangled with one another.

A story about a slow descent into ruin.

Which meant that Act Three...

Chu Se Mi asked in a trembling voice,

"How does Act Three end?"

"If you were the doctor, what would you do?"

"If they're only getting worse... If we're already going for tragedy, wouldn't it be even crueler if the doctor gave up on them too?"

"That brings me to the ending I had in mind. We completely flip things around and..."

Yu Myeong explained his proposed ending.

"Gasp... Like that...?"

"So instead of pulling it out of the fairy tale..."

That day, the first draft was completed.

 A play was not built through acting alone.

Lighting.

Set design.

Sound.

Costumes.

If even one of those elements was poorly executed, the quality of the entire production suffered immediately.

Which meant there was an enormous amount of work to do besides rehearsing.

"We've sent out the first draft of the script. One of our company's writers is going to revise it with theatrical staging in mind."

"Got it."

"I'll handle the sound design. I'd rather the actors focus on acting as much as possible."

"Thank you, sunbae."

But the set and lighting required direct involvement.

A planning meeting was held with Team Triple and the stage director.

"I've read the script you sent. It's very interesting, haha. But this set is going to be tricky. It's practically a fantasy piece, so we probably shouldn't go too realistic, right?"

"Right, Director. I've been imagining an abstract stage built around a few simple devices." 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

Yu Myeong slid a sheet of paper across the table.

It was a sketch.

An empty stage.

Three cylindrical platforms stood upon it.

The platform in the center was one meter high.

The one on the left was ten centimeters.

The one on the right was forty centimeters and twisted in shape.

Each platform was only large enough for a single person to stand on.

Surrounding each cylinder was a rectangular prism.

"What are these?"

"The platforms stay fixed. Would it be possible to make these rectangular frames out of acrylic and suspend them from the fly system so they can be lowered and raised?"

"Hmm... It's possible. But acrylic doesn't have much weight to it, so it'll sway. If these are supposed to represent the walls of the isolation rooms, they might not feel stable enough."

"That's fine. The wall-touching will all be done through mime. The actors won't actually touch them."

"In that case, no problem."

Act One, Scene One.

Peter Pan, who had been racing around the stage as though flying, would leap onto the center platform.

Hook, who fled from the ticking clock, would climb onto the platform on the right.

And Wendy, hiding behind Peter, would stand on the platform to the left.

The height of the platforms represented their mental states.

Peter Pan's elevated platform symbolized his exaggerated self image.

Wendy's low platform symbolized her self esteem crawling along the floor.

Hook's twisted platform symbolized his distorted identity.

Then, at the end of Act One, Scene One, a beam of cold blue light would strike each platform.

Boom.

The isolation rooms descended.

"I see the idea. You said the counseling room would just be represented by a movable desk and chair. What are these silhouettes on the cyclorama?"

"We aren't using extras, so I wanted them to symbolize related characters and the crowds watching from the outside."

"Ah..."

"I'd like the number of silhouettes to change depending on the scene. Sometimes a few people. Sometimes dozens."

"That's easy enough. We can project them. Would you like actual human figures rather than shadows?"

"No. I want the stage to remain as abstract as possible. But if we could add smiling mouths to some of the shadows, that would be great. There are scenes where I'll need that."

"So prepare regular shadows and separate versions with smiling mouths?"

"Exactly."

"Okay. Nothing too difficult there. We'll turn this into proper plans and meet again."

"Thank you, Director."

Step by step, preparations continued.

The performance period was finalized as May 27 through June 18.

Twenty-three days.

And on May 26, the day before opening night, the documentary was scheduled to air.

 "It couldn't have been easy to choose theater right after achieving a career breakthrough like this."

"Hmm... I don't know. When we started, I had no idea Late Goryeo, Early Joseon would become this successful."

Yu Myeong smiled sheepishly.

The interview was being filmed in a dim rehearsal room, illuminated by a single light and a reflector.

Today was one of the days Team Triple had agreed to cooperate with the documentary crew.

"I wanted to create something with actors I genuinely wanted to work with. A story that only we could tell. But television dramas and films require more than just passion. There are shoots, editing, and countless things to worry about besides acting. Theater is different. If you have a place to perform, you can make it happen."

As he explained the appeal of stage productions, Yu Myeong's eyes sparkled.

The look in his eyes was so full of love for acting that Producer Ban felt embarrassed for ever suspecting his motives for choosing theater.

"Why Peter Pan?"

"One member of our team has relatively little acting experience. To help her practice simpler emotions, I assigned her fairy tale acting exercises."

"Oh?"

Interesting.

Ban Sun Ho scribbled a note.

[Simple emotions - fairy tale acting]

"Then one day she brought in Peter Pan. And it turned out to be much more emotionally complex than I expected. You know how sometimes you reread a fairy tale as an adult and suddenly get shocked by it? Take The Red Shoes. It's incredibly cruel. The girl dances until she literally has her feet cut off."

"Ah, that appeared in Ballerina High too."

"Exactly, haha. Peter Pan was the same. I never realized it as a child, but when I revisited it as an adult, every single character felt warped."

"I read the original while preparing this documentary, and honestly, my reaction was, 'Wait... Peter Pan is about this? Seriously?'"

"Right? That's how the play started. What if these people existed in reality? Wouldn't they need psychiatric treatment?"

"Oh..."

Producer Ban couldn't help admiring the idea.

Theme.

Perspective.

Every documentary began with a question like that.

What if we looked at this subject through this perspective?

"So you cast the roles before writing the script?"

"That's right. We're not professional playwrights, so we approached it from an actor's perspective. Actors often say that once you completely understand and immerse yourself in a role, the character naturally starts improvising."

"Improvising..."

"Honestly, our play is basically a collection of improvisations. We established the world of Peter Pan and the core settings we'd agreed on. Then we immersed ourselves completely in our characters and asked what they would say and do in specific situations. Scene by scene, we built the play that way."

No one understood that process better than Ban Sun Ho.

He had watched it happen from the sidelines.

Yet somehow, despite being created this way, the result never felt messy or unfocused.

Ideas flowed endlessly.

Those ideas consistently moved in the same direction.

And the team reached agreement with remarkable ease.

Why?

"Ah... Well, haha. It's because they're all craftsmen."

"Craftsmen?"

"They understand how a play's narrative works and how it builds toward a climax. That means very little explanation is necessary. If someone says, 'That feels out of character,' they're usually right. If someone says, 'Wouldn't this work better?' they're usually right too. They're people with a deep understanding of dramatic structure, so reaching consensus is quick. And their tastes happen to align."

Excited by the subject, Yu Myeong spoke longer than usual.

And after listening, Ban Sun Ho felt strangely deflated.

'So in the end...

Isn't this just their world?'

It truly was.

Their world.

But a world built upon countless hours of sweat, effort, and obsession.

After more than a month of observing their rehearsals, Ban Sun Ho was once again realizing that people who reached the top of any field were supported by levels of effort ordinary people could scarcely imagine.

Click.

He switched off the interview camera and lowered his voice.

"One more question. Off the record."

"Uh... That suddenly sounds scary. What is it, Producer?"

"Can I get tickets in advance?"

"What? Hahaha. Of course. I'll get you tickets. Bring your wife."

Yes!

He clenched his fist.

As a producer whose life consisted of overtime and weekend shifts, he had finally found a chance to score points with his wife.

And more than that—

He genuinely wanted to see the finished play.

 "What the hell is this interview list?"

"It's a necessary list."

Director Nam stared at the document Ban Sun Ho had submitted and nearly lost the power of speech.

At first he'd thrown a tantrum about not wanting to do the project.

Now he seemed determined to spend the entire documentary department's budget.

The man truly had no middle ground.

"A professor of kinesiology...? What is this?"

"We're going to include an analysis of Yu Myeong's physical capabilities. He practically flies around the stage to portray Peter Pan. I want an expert explaining just how exceptional that level of flexibility and physical control really is."

"...Hoo..."

Director Nam pressed a hand to his forehead.

"And what's this? Last year's winner of the Mythic Playwriting Award?"

"I want a respected playwright to evaluate the structure and artistic value of Team Triple's original script."

"...Haah..."

He sighed.

"Fine. Let's say I understand those. Then what's this request for a business trip to France?"

"The chief programmer of the Cannes Film Festival praised Ballerina High, didn't he? We should interview him."

"Hey! Ban Sun Ho!"

"Yes?"

Even as Director Nam roared, Ban Sun Ho merely cleaned out one ear and looked at him blankly.

"Are you screwing with me?!"

"Not at all, Director. I'm standing right in front of the documentary of my life. I'm on fire right now."

"When did I tell you to make a masterpiece? I told you to make a documentary."

"Come on, hyung. You told me to do it properly. I'm trying to do it properly. Can't you help me out a little?"

Hoooo...

Director Nam let out a long sigh before crumpling the overseas travel request.

"No France. Ask for a phone interview. As for the rest..." He pointed at the papers. "Use every last scrap of common sense you possess as a salaried employee and trim this down. If it's not completely ridiculous, I'll support as much of it as I can."

(Yes!)

"Did you just say 'yes'?"

"When did I do that?"

Watching Ban Sun Ho play dumb, Director Nam narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

This was late March.

Eight weeks before both the play and the documentary broadcast.

And as time rushed onward,

Peter Pan gradually revealed its final shape.