Chapter 10
“Congratulations, and make our school’s name proud in the future.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
So I copied Woongbae’s response for the last part.
As soon as the call ended, I turned to say something to Woongbae, but he was already sprinting down the stairs. It sounded like thunder rolling through the house.
“I’m the top-ranked student in the Film Production Department!”
Then came a chorus of cheers.
“Lee Heeyoon is the top-ranked student in the Acting Department too!”
The way he spoke to his parents sounded perfectly normal, so apparently that weird way he talked to me earlier had just been part of his act.
A moment later, thunder struck three times louder as Woongbae and his parents came running back upstairs together. Then all three of them surrounded me, hugged me tightly, and started jumping up and down.
“Our house has a future film director and actor!”
I had absolutely no idea what this was supposed to be.
I’d never experienced anything like it in my life.
Still, while we were bouncing around like that, the awkwardness between Woongbae and me naturally disappeared.
Humans were full of mysteries.
I thought about the time I had left to live.
A little over fifteen years.
Back then, even that had felt unbearably long. But now I understood why it had seemed that way.
People spent their time doing things like this.
Things that looked pointless and meaningless.
They hugged each other, celebrated together, jumped around as if they were going to bring the house down.
They shared friendship, loved, cried until they collapsed.
Apparently, that was what people spent their time on.
Thinking about it that way, fifteen years didn’t seem quite so long anymore.
Maybe…
Someday, it would even feel short.
Anyway, after jumping around with Woongbae’s family, the two of us decided to continue watching the movie we’d been watching.
But before pressing play, Woongbae looked unusually serious.
“Heeyoon. I have a favor to ask.”
“Sure. I’ll do it.”
“…You don’t even know what it is.”
“You’re going to ask me to be in your first movie. Fine.”
Woongbae nodded before speaking again.
“But you’re wrong about one thing. My first movie? I’ve already made three movies since elementary school.”
“You’ve been hiding them from me this whole time? Aren’t we supposed to be friends?”
Now that I knew a little arguing wouldn’t ruin our friendship, I deliberately spoke in a provocative tone.
Woongbae flinched.
“Y-Your standards for judging movies are rather high… I’m sorry. I’ll show them to you now.”
“Hurry up. I need to go home later.”
“Got it.”
He immediately showed me all three films in succession.
The first two were less like movies and more like collections of every random thing he’d filmed nonstop ever since he first got his hands on a camera.
The third one, however, was unmistakably a film.
It had been made during middle school with his film club.
He said three years of his life were inside that movie.
After it ended, I asked him,
“What do you want to make? Film… or movies?”
“Movies. Blockbusters. Tentpole films. Though school will probably teach us how to make films.”
“Either way’s fine. Shoot everything you can. As long as we’re attending the same school, I’ll appear in every movie you ask me to.”
“Hah… You make promises so casually you’d probably make one with the devil too…”
“So? You doing it or not?”
“Of course I am. Don’t go back on your word.”
“You’re the one who better not back out. And make more movies. You spent three years in a film club and only made one? And watch more movies already. Stop watching anime.”
“Wow. You just had to hit where it hurts.”
“What did I hit?”
“An otaku’s heart.”
“You’re insane.”
“Start with Naoki Urasawa’s works. I refuse to eat with anyone who’s never read his stuff.”
“Is it short?”
“It’s long as hell.”
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who had realized that a little bickering wouldn’t damage our friendship.
Still, we kept arguing anyway.
After that, we binged dramas for hours.
Only when it was finally time for me to leave did I suddenly remember something.
“About commercial movies.”
“Yeah?”
“Make your debut before I turn thirty-two. Promise.”
“International age?”
“No. Korean age.”
“No matter how much of a genius I am, that’s impossible.”
“Work harder. In return, you’ve got until the end of the year for principal photography.”
Nothing was impossible if you actually did it.
Woongbae kept making movies.
In my memories, the name Woongbae had remained only faintly.
We’d never worked together.
He stayed an assistant director for years before finally releasing his own film in December, the year I died.
I remembered standing in front of the theater trying to choose between Woongbae’s movie and another one.
I picked the other film because it looked less likely to come to streaming services.
If I hadn’t spent every day drinking myself into exhaustion and destroying my stamina, I probably could have watched both.
What had Woongbae’s debut film, released when he was thirty-seven, been like?
I’d only seen the movies he’d made as a kid.
But I could say this with certainty.
He would have become one of the great masters.
With Park Sunyoung also in the hospital, I was practically the only one looking after the married couple’s house.
That was when everyone from Leader Actors came to celebrate my acceptance into the arts high school.
“If you people just wanted to drink, you could’ve said so. Why use me as an excuse?”
I complained as the Leader Actors staff grilled meat and started a drinking party in the yard.
CEO Gam Seongbeom, already drunk, shouted,
“We never get chances for company dinners! We couldn’t let this opportunity go!”
Then Jang Choongwon—the biggest reason there hadn’t been any company dinners lately, having just wrapped two dramas that both ended with ratings in the one-percent range—spoke with a flushed face.
“Yeah… My dramas only got one percent ratings, so we never had anything to celebrate… It’s all my fault.”
He tried to sound cheerful, but the atmosphere turned awkward.
Then I heard Do Jaeyeon muttering.
“That’s why you should’ve listened when Vice President Gam strongly told you not to do it…”
“Ah… Jaeyeon’s drunk.”
Bae Ise, our agency’s only actress who was still practically unknown, hurriedly cut him off.
Jang Choongwon looked even angrier thanks to the alcohol, but since Do Jaeyeon wasn’t actually wrong, he couldn’t say much.
Eventually, though, he couldn’t hold it in.
“That’s why I don’t act anymore.”
“You call that an excuse?!”
“Oh, I called it an excuse! Then what is it, a fish?”
“Oh, enough with the fish already! Why does an actors’ agency smell like fish every other day?”
“You try having consecutive flops. See if you don’t end up fishing!”
People always said the dead were remembered more fondly than they deserved.
Apparently, I’d remembered everyone at Leader Actors in a ridiculously idealized light.
How had I forgotten that they were this immature when they were younger?
Always drinking.
Always arguing.
Yet somehow…
Watching them like this made it finally sink in that everyone had come back.
Everyone else was laughing drunkenly while watching Jang Choongwon and Do Jaeyeon argue.
Vice President Gam Suhan was the only one desperately trying to stop them, but even he couldn’t calm down two completely drunk men.
In the end, since I was the only sober person there, I stepped in to help.
Only to get smacked across the face by Jang Choongwon’s wildly swinging arm.
It didn’t seem like a hard hit.
But something kept dripping.
When I looked, blood was pouring from my nose.
I stuffed a wad of tissue into it.
Everyone was staring at me.
Figuring this was my chance, I said,
“It’s fine if you fight.”
“But make sure you make up afterward.”
“…”
“This is the only place I have to go.”
“So don’t break it.”
Apparently, words like that weren’t enough to stop Leader Actors’ downfall.
There wasn’t even any sign that it had slowed.
“Heeyoon.”
“I’m going inside.”
Ignoring Vice President Gam Suhan calling after me, I went into my room.
Lying on my bed, I thought.
If I couldn’t save Leader Actors, then there had been no point in returning.
To save this place, I had to work more.
There was no other choice.
No matter what it took, I had to make Leader Actors a lot of money.
I’d accept every job that came my way.
At my age, the only roles available would pay almost nothing.
Still, if I kept working nonstop…
Somehow…
While I was thinking alone, voices drifted through the thin paper door.
All six actors and the five employees—everyone except Gam Ihyeon and me—were whispering outside.
“So why’d you pick a fight at the kid’s celebration?”
“And Choongwon hyung even hit him.”
“Boo. Trash.”
“Well… I am trash, but… Heeyoon’s reaction was weird too. If you get hit, shouldn’t you get angry or sulk? Is that really how a kid reacts? I already acted like trash, but now I feel even worse.”
“Honestly… it really looked that way.”
“Ugh… Since I’m the one who messed up, I’ll endure it.”
They were talking about me so loudly outside that my ears hurt.
I slid open the paper door.
All eleven adults from Leader Actors standing outside immediately turned to look at me.
The smell of alcohol was overwhelming.
“What are you doing?”
I asked.
Jang Choongwon scratched his head awkwardly.
“Sorry. You can hit me back once.”
“No.”
“Kid, you’re pretty firm about your opinions. Fine. I’ll take you fishing.”
“I’d hate that even more.”
“You really are a rude little brat.”
He nodded to himself.
Then the thoroughly drunk CEO Gam Seongbeom chimed in.
“I just hope this is puberty.”
“I think it’s just his personality.”
“That’s a problem.”
Gam Seongbeom pretended to sigh before bursting into loud drunken laughter.
“But once you’re family, you’re family forever! Until the day you walk away on your own, I’ll take care of you properly!”
“Can I go to bed now?”
“Come on! At least pretend to be touched!”
“I’m literally the only sober person here, so it’s just funny…”
Before I could finish, Gam Seongbeom threw an arm around Jang Choongwon’s shoulders.
Then everyone else linked shoulders too.
The porch became too crowded, so the circle spilled into the courtyard.
Twelve of us stood there shoulder to shoulder.
Then Gam Seongbeom declared,
“We’re not going under! Leader Actors is going to grow! We’re going to make it big! Trust me! I’ll stake my life on this company! From here on, the only direction left is up!”
Listening while sober, it just sounded like drunken rambling.
But to everyone else, it seemed deeply moving.
Except for Jang Choongwon, almost everyone there was either a rookie or an unknown actor.
This tiny agency celebrated every single successful audition.
Yet here stood Gam Seongbeom, making grand promises.
And somehow, everyone got swept up in his confidence.
Fortunately…
I knew the future.
Leader Actors would survive.
It would grow.
Mostly because of me.
So I still had to do well.
As long as I did…
Somehow…
It would work out.
“Huh? Heeyoon’s smiling?”
Vice President Gam Suhan, who was the least drunk, noticed my expression first.
Almost immediately afterward, Bae Ise—who’d been sober enough to stop Do Jaeyeon earlier—pinched my cheek.
“Aww, so cute. Seriously, this doesn’t make any sense. If you weren’t the boss’s son, why would someone this adorable join our company?”
“Ise, you’re drunk.”
“His cheeks are so soft. I’ve wanted to get a closer look for ages. Who cares if he’s a little rude? He’s this adorable.”
This time, Do Jaeyeon dragged Bae Ise away instead.
The cheek she’d pinched still tingled.
Vice President Gam Suhan quickly handed me an ice pack for it.
The whole gathering was complete chaos.
Even so, these adults were trying in their own clumsy way to make me laugh.
It was… surprisingly funny.
“Congratulations again on being the top-ranked student! To our future great actor!”
CEO Gam Seongbeom raised his toast.
I lifted my cup of soda and joined the adults.
Just as I was thinking that company dinners could actually be fun…
The devil spoke from beyond the clinking glasses.
[Warning]
[Warning]
[Warning]
[Your acceptance as the top-ranked student is accelerating the downfall of ‘Leader Actors.’]
[Be careful.]
Human life really was nothing more than an endless off-road path, riddled with bottomless pits waiting to swallow you whole.
