Chapter 13
Gam Yi-hyun quickly focused, standing between a seventeen-year-old film director and an actor.
I climbed up and sat on the bed. My role was the spider, and Gam Yi-hyun’s was the butterfly.
[Spider: I always dreamed of touching a butterfly… but until now, I have never once taken a butterfly as prey. I was out of luck. Seeing you fly like this makes me wonder all over again. Will I be able to touch a butterfly’s wing even once before I die?]
[Butterfly: I want to make someone’s dream come true, too. But as you know… if I come close to you, I will die.]
[Spider: That is true. More than that, you want to make a dream come true?]
[Butterfly: Yes. If your dream is to touch a butterfly’s wing, my dream is to make another’s dream come true. That is why, Spider.]
[Spider: (With a face of desire) Yes.]
[Butterfly: I promise. When the day comes that I am dying… I will return to you. I will return and make your dream come true.]
And so, the spider and the butterfly lived their respective lives. The butterfly’s lifespan was not long, but the promise was kept.
The weak butterfly gently landed on the spiderweb.
[Spider: You have come to make the dream come true.]
[Butterfly: How is the butterfly’s wing?]
[Spider: It is soft. It feels like dreaming. So this is what it means to achieve a dream…]
[Butterfly: Indeed, this is what it means to achieve a dream. It is a very joyful thing.]
The spider pretended to be happy, but he was not. Because the butterfly was dying.
However, the spider pretended to be happy to fulfill the butterfly’s dream. That was the butterfly’s dream.
Woo Woong-bae came to think again about what kind of profession an actor is.
Seventeen years old. In a crude text written by a director whose ambition preceded his skill, that great actor Gam Yi-hyun, and Lee Hee-yoon, who had become close enough to find this kind of thing embarrassing, were fully immersed and acting.
To them, the greatness of the movie or the text did not matter. The important thing was the acting. It was just acting and nothing else.
Woo Woong-bae completely understood why Lee Hee-yoon had asked for an acting fee. When he received the acting fee, Lee Hee-yoon’s acting was on a completely different level. It was the same for Gam Yi-hyun.
To Woo Woong-bae, Gam Yi-hyun, who was more decrepit than his actual age, looked like a butterfly that might fly away at any moment, and his friend, Lee Hee-yoon, looked like an unfamiliar spider. They moved like a butterfly and a spider. Surprisingly, they observed what those entities were like clearly enough to become them.
Woo Woong-bae focused on filming so as not to miss this moment.
It was a great experience that made Woo Woong-bae grow as a director.
The filming took quite a long time to finish. Actually, they couldn’t do many takes anyway, and Gam Yi-hyun was so experienced that the shooting itself finished quickly, but it took a fair amount of time for Woo Woong-bae to capture the room tone (the ambient noise that occurs inside a specific room or set).
No matter the filming location, there is bound to be micro-noise, and he had heard that to maintain the flow of the movie, it is important to keep that noise sounding consistent throughout the video.
Since this movie made alone by Woo Woong-bae would be difficult to supplement with room tone in post-production, it had to be secured as perfectly as possible on site.
Gam Yi-hyun and I watched blankly as Woo Woong-bae captured the room tone. Seeing that work made it feel even more real. We had made a movie.
“It’s all done.”
After Woo Woong-bae spoke, I chided him.
“Give us a refreshing ‘cut’ sound. If you mumble like that, it makes us anxious thinking the director didn’t like it.”
“You did that kind of acting with the master, so why does my ‘cut’ sound matter?”
Woo Woong-bae had an absurd expression. And he looked at Gam Yi-hyun as if asking him to take his side. However, Gam Yi-hyun was, expectedly, on the actors’ side.
“Hee-yoon is right. It’s good to do it loudly. It doesn’t matter if you are a rookie or a director right before retirement. The movie set is controlled by the director. You know that, right, Director?”
At the word ‘Director,’ Woo Woong-bae didn’t realize he was being called, and then regained his senses a step late.
“Ah, yes. That’s right. I was dazed because I was in front of a giant. I will be careful in the future.”
Gam Yi-hyun smiled faintly at Woo Woong-bae’s polite words toward adults.
Then, he stroked my back with a very slow hand and said.
“You’ve made a good friend.”
“We fight a lot.”
“That’s what friends do.”
Both Woo Woong-bae and I agreed with those words.
Woo Woong-bae said as he packed the equipment.
“Then I will go to edit now.”
Saying so, Woo Woong-bae left first. I thought Woo Woong-bae had gone out to make time for the actors to talk among themselves.
I had a hunch that this would be the last moment Gam Yi-hyun and I could converse.
I had a lot to ask Gam Yi-hyun. There were still hundreds and thousands of things to learn about acting. Even so, in the end, the words you can say when a person you’ve grown close to leaves are of a different kind.
“I didn’t originally eat jokbal (pig’s trotters).”
“Uh-huh.”
“I eat it now. Because the people at Leader Actors like it so much. So speaking of which, what do you want to eat, Grandfather? I’ll go buy it.”
“Well, it would be nice to have a bowl of janchi-guksu (banquet noodles).”
“I’ll be back soon, so don’t fall asleep.”
At my words, Gam Yi-hyun nodded. Then, he said to me.
“Hee-yoon.”
“Yes.”
“Did you really use your life for my son?”
I flinched.
I didn’t know Gam Yi-hyun would remember until the end what I had said last year. I shook my head vigorously.
“No way. Back then, I was just a bit caught up in that kind of setting. Like I was acting. I guess I wanted attention.”
“Really?”
“I am going to live longer than you, Grandfather, and act longer. Because there are so many roles I want to play, I think I’ll have to live until I’m 120.”
At my words, Gam Yi-hyun nodded. Though I don’t know which side he believed.
Park Seon-young wept and staggered at the sight of her husband acting beyond the glass window, and CEO Gam Seong-beom hurriedly supported her so she barely managed not to collapse.
“To send him off seeing him that happy. Sigh, I guess he likes acting more than his own wife.”
Tears were plopping down from the eyes of Park Seon-young, who barely managed a joke.
CEO Gam Seong-beom, whose tears and runny nose were also pouring out, barely opened his mouth.
“Father…”
However, those two syllables were all he could manage.
“It’s youth.”
So Park Seon-young spoke instead for what both CEO Gam Seong-beom and Gam Yi-hyun wanted to say.
“It’s romantic.”
I soon left the hospital room. And just as I was about to go buy the janchi-guksu, Park Seon-young caught me. And after making her son go buy the janchi-guksu, she wrapped my hand with both of her hands and said.
“Hee-yoon. I need to tell you as quickly as possible so you won’t worry.”
“What words?”
“Once Grandfather leaves, I… don’t think I can enter that house for the time being. I just can’t go there.”
“…”
“So I’m going to stay where I grew up for a while. Can you look after the house during that time? Ah, you can live there until you want to.”
“Just until I become an adult.”
“Right, until you become an adult.”
Park Seon-young knew that I had nowhere to go. So it seemed she wanted to make sure my residence was secure.
Park Seon-young hugged me tightly and said.
“You can invite your friends as much as you want, but no alcohol. You know, right?”
“I don’t drink. I’m a model student.”
“Right, right.”
Park Seon-young replied with a laugh.
While waiting for Gam Seong-beom, we talked about this and that.
“Hee-yoon. Grandfather really… really did nothing but act. Even when we went on trips, I always went alone, you know? Still, when the time came, he would come to the travel destination. He’d fly for over ten hours to come, stay with me for one day, and then go back for over ten hours… That’s why I let it slide and lived with him.”
To me, who was nodding, Park Seon-young continued her words.
“I know you will live like that too, Hee-yoon. Even so, it’s good to make another thing you like. Just one.”
“Like how Grandfather went to see you, Grandmother?”
“Huh?”
“Grandfather clearly had something he liked. Enough to do a day trip on a ten-plus-hour flight.”
When Park Seon-young showed signs of wailing again at my words, CEO Gam Seong-beom, who had bought enough janchi-guksu for the number of people, discovered it and chided me.
“Sigh, you make a person who barely stopped crying cry again, you.”
“Why, it’s true.”
“You, really…”
“A thankfully rude bastard?”
“Uh, what. That’s accurate. How did you know?”
“I heard those words before.”
A terribly thankful, rude bastard.
Thinking about it again now, it is a bit funny. That he’s a bastard even though he’s so thankful. That he’s thankful even though he’s such a bastard.
Park Seon-young woke Gam Yi-hyun up even by force, and everyone sat around and ate the janchi-guksu together. Gam Yi-hyun ate the noodles well enough that it was hard to believe he was a sick person.
And two days later, Gam Yi-hyun passed away.
Park Seon-young returned to her parents’ home with the Pungsan dog she was raising, and the empty house became mine for a while.
After the funeral, I wanted to just lock myself in the room, but Do Jae-yeon didn’t let me.
Park Seon-young said, ‘It makes no sense to let the kid stay alone,’ so the company people ended up half-living here. Somehow, there is even less freedom.
My room door had to remain slightly open all the time until I fell asleep.
I’m not sad to that extent, but those people are misunderstanding.
Woo Woong-bae had been immersed in editing for over a month. He was making only that while pushing aside all school assignments, so the video production class teacher had once nagged me.
“Sigh, you talented things match well together to make trouble. Why do you make a kid from our department not show up to school?”
“You’re looking forward to it too, Teacher, honestly.”
“I am ready to evaluate objectively, I am.”
The expression of the video production teacher saying so was full of anticipation.
Anyway, our school had so many idols, and there were many students who hadn’t debuted but were actors or idol trainees, so leaving early and absences were free.
Trusting in that, waiting for Woo Woong-bae who would frequently be absent or suddenly leave early even after coming to school because he only thought about the movie, I had to find that missing piece alone.
It became clear that they didn’t know about the 1st place in Class 2.
It cannot be discovered by going in to look during break time.
If so, I had no choice but to use a certain and crazy method.
That day, I had just finished the first class at school. We had a fair amount of foreign language classes, so it was a foreign language class.
And the 2nd period.
I stood up abruptly from my seat in the middle of class.
I went out as if going to the restroom, and then moved my steps toward the small auditorium where Class 2 was having a lesson.
And I slid open the front door and walked inside.
“Lee Hee-yoon? What are you? Why?”
The acting department teacher who was conducting the Class 2 lesson asked me, but I just bowed in greeting and stood where the teacher’s podium was.
And I looked around the small auditorium, which had an unusually large number of students, nearing forty.
“I’m asking what you are doing?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Lee Hee-yoon!”
I checked the faces in order. A familiar face, a familiar face, a familiar face.
Most of Class 1 and 2 are familiar faces. Because at least I’ve seen them while passing by. Even if I might not know their names, I can’t not know their faces. We hung out that much before admission, and there were many classes we took together now.
I checked the faces without leaving out a single person. Even when the teacher told me to get out from the side, I didn’t listen.
A familiar face, still a familiar face, this time too a familiar face.
And.
Just one person.
An unfamiliar face.
