Threads of Time

Chapter Twenty: Lines We've Already Lived

Table Read – Friendly Rivalry, 2023

The script was thick.

A romance-drama set in a competitive arts high school. Two girls at odds—Hyeri playing the sharp-tongued class president, and Su Bin as the aloof transfer student with a secret. Cold gazes. Stolen glances. That slow-burn kind of hate that tastes a little too much like longing.

The table read room smelled like instant coffee and leather binders.

Staff buzzed around the edges. Camera crews recorded behind-the-scenes footage. Stylists waited to observe facial angles. The director adjusted his notes with a grin too wide to be casual.

Hyeri sat at the center of the table. Confident. Loose-shouldered. Her energy was effortless, as always. She'd done this a dozen times. But even she looked up when Su Bin entered.

Noticed.

The room shifted.

Su Bin bowed politely, slid into the seat across from her. Their scripts mirrored each other—open to the same first line.

Scene One. A stare. A silence. A history that hasn't happened yet.

They greeted each other.

"Nice to meet you," Hyeri said, voice cool and kind.

Su Bin nodded. "I've been looking forward to this."

Neither said more.

But both stared a second too long.

Both forgot to breathe until the assistant director called action.

The scene was simple.

Su Bin's character—Seulgi—catches Hyeri's character—Jae-i—snooping around her locker. They argue. Trade barbed insults. Then stand too close. A line in the script reads:

[Their eyes lock. It's not quite hatred. Not yet. But it's too much.]

When they got to that moment, no one spoke.

The words faded.

Su Bin looked up.

Hyeri was already watching her.

Their lines were done.

But they didn't look away.

The room went still.

The director finally clapped his hands, breaking the moment. "That's it—that's exactly it. That tension? Keep that."

Su Bin blinked. Looked away first.

Hyeri flipped the page slowly.

Her hand trembled just once.

Later, in the stairwell outside the building, Hyeri leaned against the wall, scrolling through her phone to feel normal again.

"Unnie."

She looked up.

Su Bin stood there, still in her trench coat, holding her script like a shield.

"That scene," Su Bin said quietly. "Did it feel... strange to you?"

Hyeri stared.

Then smiled.

"A little," she said. "Like I've already lived it."