Chapter 14
No, rather than an unfamiliar face…
I walked between the narrow chairs toward that figure.
It wasn’t an unfamiliar face.
It was worse than that.
I couldn’t see the face.
It was covered by something blurry.
“Who are you?”
I asked, and he probably…
…smiled.
“Hello, Heeyoon.”
I heard his voice.
“I’m Han Jeonghyeon.”
His name, too.
Only then did I hear it.
“You’re going to forget everything I’m about to tell you.”
Then he pulled me closer and whispered something into my ear.
I definitely heard it.
The voice of a villain…
…so wicked that even demons would shudder.
“Ah!”
When I opened my eyes again, I was in the hospital.
As I caught my breath, I saw Vice President Gam Suhan hurrying toward me.
Maybe because I wasn’t feeling well, for a moment he looked like Gam Ihyeon. More than Chairman Gam Seongbeom, Vice President Gam Suhan resembled his uncle.
“Heeyoon, I heard you suddenly collapsed!”
As he said that, the usually gentle Vice President Gam Suhan smacked my arm.
“Ow, why are you hitting someone who just collapsed?”
“Because you scared me! Why did you suddenly go over to the class next door and pass out…?”
“I went to the class next door?”
“So you don’t remember from there onward. Well, there’s no way you could’ve been in a normal state… This is exactly why I keep telling you to eat properly.”
“I do eat properly.”
It had been nice eating together with Park Sunyoung and Gam Ihyeon, but now that I had to eat alone again, all enjoyment had disappeared.
Besides, I was already taller than I had been before my regression. As long as nobody starved me to the point of malnutrition like before, I could survive well enough.
Vice President Gam Suhan said,
“Sigh… You hardly eat, yet you keep growing taller, so I can’t even nag you about your height…”
I was confused.
At least there was one fortunate thing.
Everyone assumed I had acted that way because of Gam Ihyeon’s death.
Maybe because I was still a child, everyone was giving me a lot of leeway.
After regaining my senses, my mind stayed completely blank for a while.
Then, little by little, the fog lifted, and fragments of what had happened resurfaced.
Combining those memories with what everyone around me had told me, one fact became certain.
- There is some kind of existence in Class 2 that I cannot perceive.
- Judging from everything, I must have encountered that existence before my regression as well. The memory was simply hidden from me.
- It is the mastermind.
Whenever I tried thinking about it further, my head hurt as though it were splitting apart, so I couldn’t continue.
Instead, I wrote everything down in my notebook and decided to read it again once I had recovered.
More than anything, I would need Woo Woongbae’s extensive understanding of fictional worldbuilding.
After locking himself away for over two months, Woo Woongbae finally finished editing and returned to school.
That weekend, Do Jaeyeon and Vice President Gam Suhan practically pushed me into going to an amusement park.
When we asked who wanted to come, there were surprisingly ten of us.
Six girls, four boys.
Eight from the Acting Department and two from the Film Production Department.
“What kind of amusement park is this…”
I grumbled.
Driving the Carnival packed with all twelve of us—including the two adults—Do Jaeyeon clicked his tongue.
“Says the guy who spent all of yesterday watching amusement park strategy videos.”
“I’m a J.”
“I’ve never seen anyone do an opening-run at an amusement park in my life. Look, everyone’s dead.”
I turned around.
All nine of them, including Woo Woongbae, were fast asleep.
This might be one of the few chances I’d ever have to visit an amusement park in my life.
Couldn’t they wake up just one day early?
I checked my carefully prepared strategy guide once more.
Vice President Gam Suhan, sitting beside Do Jaeyeon to keep him talking so he wouldn’t get sleepy behind the wheel, looked over at me.
“Is this your first time at an amusement park?”
“I’ve been with my parents before, but I only have pictures—I don’t remember it. After that, I went a few times with my uncle’s family, but I spent those trips standing in line and watching everyone’s bags.”
“Ah, then this is practically your first time! I hope it’s as fun as you’re expecting.”
The moment I said that, I felt everyone in the car flinch.
Even a few of the people who’d been sleeping twitched.
…They’re pitying me way too much.
Maybe I shouldn’t mention things like that anymore.
When we finally arrived, Do Jaeyeon got out of the car and said,
“Hey, are we really not the only ones doing an opening-run? There are this many other people who think like Heeyoon?”
Quite a crowd had already gathered, waiting for the gates to open.
We waited until nine o’clock.
The moment the gates opened, we rushed inside.
Looking at everyone individually, I’d always thought my classmates simply had strong personalities.
But when all ten of us walked together…
Half of us looked like celebrities.
We were unusually tall, good-looking, and even our fashion stood out.
Though inside, we were perfectly ordinary.
“Wait, let me upload a story first.”
“Come on already!”
“Should we split up?”
“Let’s just follow Heeyoon’s strategy.”
“Actors, I’m filming from now on. No swearing, no flipping people off, and no littering!”
“Can we lightly roast each other?”
“Only mild roasting.”
Once we reached an agreement, everyone followed my strategy at the beginning.
My plan was perhaps a little too perfect for a seventeen-year-old.
Do Jaeyeon managed to keep up somehow.
Vice President Gam Suhan, however, was completely exhausted before noon.
The adults eventually stayed behind at an outdoor café while the rest of us roamed around the amusement park.
Wherever we went, people stared.
Originally only the girls bought headbands.
But after we’d finished the early part of my strategy, a group of older girls asked me if I was an idol trainee and then bought me a rabbit-ear headband.
Seeing that, all the boys bought matching ones.
The four tall guys walking around with rabbit ears looked terrifying to me.
But without exaggeration…
Every girl in the amusement park loved it.
It was embarrassing.
Still, everyone seemed happy, so I let it go.
Since my stamina wasn’t that great, I returned to the outdoor café after completing the first phase of our plan.
As I ate the soft-serve ice cream Vice President Gam Suhan had bought for me, Do Jaeyeon teased me.
“I thought you said, ‘What’s so great about amusement parks?’ Looks like you’re having plenty of fun.”
“I don’t want to waste the admission fee.”
That was my answer.
But honestly…
I was enjoying myself.
Not just me.
Everyone else, too.
We played as though today were our last chance ever to come to an amusement park.
That night, we returned home.
A projector screen had been set up in the yard.
There, Woo Woongbae held the final screening of his film.
Park Sunyoung, who had recently started a small farm.
Chairman Gam Seongbeom, who had spent a long time drowning himself in alcohol before finally returning to work and burying himself in it again.
Each of them sat quietly in a chair in the yard.
Woo Woongbae had spent two months editing and all of today’s energy.
He looked too exhausted to even be nervous anymore.
Strangely enough, my own fatigue had disappeared.
I focused completely on the twelve-minute film.
When it ended, nobody spoke for a long time.
Finally, Park Sunyoung was the first to break the silence.
“He wanted to act so badly… and in the end, he really did it before he left. He looked… happy.”
At those words, Chairman Gam Seongbeom, who had barely been holding himself together, finally lowered his head.
His shoulders shook as he cried.
While everyone else was caught up in emotion…
Do Jaeyeon was busy shaking the nearly unconscious Woo Woongbae and interrogating him about how they planned to use the film.
Things I hadn’t been able to do even by the age of thirty-seven in my previous life…
I was experiencing many of them this time.
I’ve always lived with sensitivity and depression.
A quiet, heavy darkness was simply part of my nature.
That hadn’t really changed in this life either.
The only difference…
Was that, every once in a while, I experienced moments of happiness.
Like stopping beneath a fruit-bearing tree growing beside a broken off-road path.
Could fleeting moments like these really change a person’s life?
Or would they eventually disappear, leaving the ending exactly the same?
To me, who still felt these fifteen years stretching endlessly ahead…
There was no way to know.
Cheongcheon Studio.
A drama production company that was home to Choi Yujin, one of Korea’s highest-paid top drama writers regardless of company size.
Recently, Choi Yujin had clearly been planning something.
But she hadn’t told even the company’s CEO, Lee Juyeon, a single thing about it.
Normally, Choi Yujin never spoke about a project until it had reached a stage where she felt comfortable showing it to others.
She also rarely left her house.
In the end, Lee Juyeon had no choice but to visit her.
Because Choi Yujin hated leaving home so much, she’d built a garden even larger than the house itself.
Sitting together on the pavilion overlooking the garden, Lee Juyeon finally asked,
“Writer, what on earth have you been doing lately?”
“Lately… relaxing.”
“Don’t lie. Miyeon and Hayoung both kept dodging the question. That means you’re definitely not relaxing.”
The assistant writers had worked with Choi Yujin for years.
If she were really taking a break, they’d have immediately gone and told Lee Juyeon.
The fact that every one of them was acting evasive meant only one thing.
Choi Yujin was secretly working on a project without telling the company.
Lee Juyeon sighed.
“This isn’t your first or second project. At least give me a rough idea of the budget. What are you making? A historical drama? A social commentary?”
“This time…”
“Yeah?”
“…Never mind.”
“Come on, unni!”
Lee Juyeon finally exploded.
“Do you think you’re going to work with just any director? Of course not! Which means I have to find the right director. At least tell me the basic premise! I’m the one whose head explodes trying to figure out the budget, and you’re doing all this without telling me anything? Can you see my hair falling out? Are you going to pay for hair transplants? Huh? Are you?”
Meanwhile, Choi Yujin simply stared blankly at the little fountain in her garden.
The only one reacting to Lee Juyeon’s shouting was Choi Sol, the Golden Retriever, who thought someone wanted to play and came running over before plopping down beside her.
Lee Juyeon, who owned cats, absentmindedly patted Choi Sol’s rear.
After meeting the dog’s bewildered eyes, she finally remembered it wasn’t a cat and hurriedly scratched behind its ears instead.
“Are you even listening to me?”
“I had a dream.”
“What kind of nonsense is that all of a sudden?”
“A vampire came down from the sky.”
“…Not an alien?”
“Pay attention. It came down from the sky. Of course it’s an alien. An alien vampire.”
Lee Juyeon squeezed her eyes shut before opening them again.
“I see. An alien vampire. Then what?”
“It clashes with Earth’s vampires.”
“…How?”
“Through religious conflict.”
“…”
“What do you think?”
“…Sorry. I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
“That’s exactly why I couldn’t tell anyone. Anyway, that’s the story. Ah… I wish there were a really talented rookie actor. Around twenty years old. Someone with such a pure face that you’d believe he was a god… or an alien… or a vampire. Someone who could fit any of them.”
Lee Juyeon rubbed her forehead, already getting a headache from the impossible summary.
The problem was…
Choi Yujin occasionally turned ridiculous ideas like this into incredible blockbuster hits.
Most of her dramas started from concepts just as absurd.
And somehow…
By the time production was underway, everything made perfect sense.
That was always the hardest part about working with Choi Yujin.
The beginning.
“Well, first of all, religious conflict definitely isn’t happening in a drama.”
“Okay. I’ll disguise it well enough that it won’t look like religious conflict.”
“As for that incredibly pure-faced rookie… I’ll try looking for one… Ah.”
Lee Juyeon frowned before reaching for her phone.
As she searched for a video, she said,
“A Film Production student at Gongyeongo High apparently made a twelve-minute movie recently. They filmed it to preserve Teacher Gam Ihyeon’s final performance before he passed away.”
“What? How did I not know about something like that?”
“Because you’ve been hiding in your house all this time… Anyway, it’s incredible. Two seventeen-year-olds made it. I cried my eyes out watching it. Those twelve minutes weren’t wasted at all.”
