The Act That Couldn't Last

Your family forced you into marriage to fix your image. No Gasol needed a wife just as badly. Tonight, at a banquet full of cameras, the act nearly slips.

Start this story in Teasa

Story facts

Turns played: 1
Cast: 1
Languages: English, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and French
Rating: Teen

About this story

You spent years earning the label 'disgrace of the family,' scandal after scandal, until Yeonwol's board decided your image was too expensive to keep tolerating. Marriage was the last card they had left, and they played it without asking you: sign the contract or lose everything tied to your name today.

No Gasol needed exactly what you were forced to become: a spouse whose family name would quiet the doubts about her own succession. In public, you are a newlywed couple performing devotion for every camera in the room. Tonight, at a banquet full of sponsors and press, she keeps you in line with a low voice and a warning about your expression, and you answer with the kind of honesty neither of you planned to risk in front of an audience.

Who you play

You are the disgraced heir of Yeonwol, married off to No Gasol of the rival Baekwol group in a contract neither of you chose. In public you play the newlywed everyone expects; in private the act is far less settled than it looks. Tonight, at a banquet under constant watch, you decide how much of the performance you keep up, and how much real feeling you let slip through.

The cast

No Gasol

the heiress who needed a wife as badly as you needed an out

No Gasol is twenty-eight, the eldest daughter of Baekwol, one of the country's top financial groups, and has spent her whole career fighting the assumption that being a woman disqualifies her from leading it.

More about No Gasol

What to expect

A real contract marriage between two heirs, arranged by families with everything to gain.
No Gasol manages your every expression in public, which makes any private honesty feel dangerous.
The banquet setting keeps you performing for cameras while the actual relationship stays unresolved.

Introduction

Narrator: You come into view, dragging your heels as you enter the banquet hall. You haven't even straightened your dress, and all you carry is a small clutch. Your eyes already look tired, your mouth set in irritation. No Gasol glances sideways at her and speaks quietly.

No Gasol: Could you watch your expression? This isn't a funeral.

Narrator: Ha... Here we go again. She can't hide a single emotion, even in a room full of sponsoring company executives, the press, and business leaders. Truly pathetic.

Narrator: Is she a child or an adult? How much older does she have to get before she realizes what position she's in? How does someone who can't control her own expression expect to run a company? That one blank look of yours is dragging down our share price and eating away at my negotiating power. How many times do I have to explain that before it sinks in?

You: Ugh… What an insufferable asshole. I'm already the world's most famous lesbian these days, so I can't even go clubbing, and now she's dragging me to one damn event after another… I glance up at Dam, twist the corner of my mouth into a smile, and drawl. It is a funeral. My private life is being buried here, isn't it?

Narrator: No Gasol lets out a short sigh at your words. Setting down her wineglass, she tilts her head slightly toward you to keep the cameras from catching her cold expression.

No Gasol: If you leave, you spoil the picture.

Narrator: We're newlyweds who can't get enough of each other

No Gasol: after all.

Narrator: She deliberately stresses “newlyweds,” her tone mocking. Ridiculous. Having to keep up appearances with words like these. Having to pretend to love someone without a shred of sincerity. Some deals go through and some partnerships fall apart depending on whether you're standing beside me. And yet here you are again today, without even bothering to straighten your dress, wearing that sour expression as though the world expects nothing of you and you owe it nothing.

Narrator: Thinking you can conquer the world with that one expression, flaunting your utter unwillingness to take responsibility—it's gone past honesty into childishness. Those tricks only worked when you were five. The days when the world catered to your moods are long over. Now it's simply deliberate negligence. In the end, someone will have to clean up the mess. As always. And right now, that someone happens to be me.

No Gasol: …It would be a problem if one expression changed today's headlines. You should know better than anyone how easily an image can be worn away.

Try one of these first lines

I hold her gaze and keep my voice sweet enough for the cameras. "Careful. Keep talking to me like that and I might actually enjoy it."
I drop the performance for just a second, quiet enough only she can hear. "Does any of this ever feel real to you, or is it only ever the act?"

Questions about this story

How does The Act That Couldn't Last begin?

You come into view, dragging your heels as you enter the banquet hall. You haven't even straightened your dress, and all you carry is a small clutch.

Who is in the cast of The Act That Couldn't Last?

The Act That Couldn't Last stars No Gasol, the heiress who needed a wife as badly as you needed an out.

What languages can I play The Act That Couldn't Last in?

You can play The Act That Couldn't Last in English, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and French.