YDCF 04

Chapter – 4

A suffocating feeling.

People often say that when you witness talent you can never surpass, you feel a crushing pressure like that.

In her decades-long acting career, Sung Hye-sim had never once felt that way toward another actor.

Good actors were everywhere, but they were all at a similar level to her. She herself had already reached the pinnacle of acting.

And yet.

‘What… was that just now?’

She was just a girl, not even twenty yet. A friend’s niece. Not even a former child actor—what people would call a complete beginner.

And yet Sung Hye-sim had been overwhelmed by Joo Sae-yi’s expression.

She hadn’t spoken a single line, but Sae-yi’s acting triggered Hye-sim’s own decades of accumulated experience.

‘That was Do-hoon.’

Among the lead character’s family, the son Yeon Do-hoon was someone who had ranked first in his school repeatedly and eventually entered a prestigious university.

But all of that had been the result of his mother’s pressure. Having lived without any will of his own, Do-hoon locked himself in his room after getting accepted.

Neither the house nor the small bedroom became freedom for him. In the end, the day before his high school graduation, he chose to end his own life.

That was the past storyline.

The main story of Your Blue Name followed after that: a mother who, after losing her son, neglected her daughter for three years, and a daughter who grew up strong on her own.

The reason Hye-sim had chosen the scene where the son, facing death, confronts his mother for the first and last time was to test Joo Sae-yi.

Episode 1’s script focused on the leads’ childhoods.

Thinking Sae-yi would concentrate only on the female lead—same gender, most lines—Hye-sim had thrown her a curveball instead.

“Mom did everything wrong… Please open the door, okay? Son…”

After delivering the line, handling her gaze, and checking the reaction—

A pale face, whites of the eyes instantly bloodshot. Pupils filled with resentment and emptiness. Eyelids trembling slightly before his first act of rebellion, lips pressed tightly together.

‘A child who carries out the cruelest revenge with the gentlest heart.’

A son who hates the mother who controlled his life. He decides to rebel through death, yet still feels sorry for the mother who would grieve for him, and in the end, pities her…

In Hye-sim’s eyes, Sae-yi was Do-hoon himself. That was why her acting broke.

‘I made a mistake. Focus, quickly…’

Just as Hye-sim tried to regain control of her emotions, Joo Sae-yi spoke.

“……Are you okay?”

“Ah, I’m sorry. I got distracted for a moment.”

Sae-yi seemed to notice immediately that Hye-sim had faltered.

Hye-sim couldn’t control the trembling at the corners of her mouth.

‘You can use your expressions like that and then switch back to reality like turning off a power button? And you even noticed my acting wavered—in that short moment?’

Ah, she wanted her. A spark reignited in the passion for acting that had long been cooling.

‘It’s not over yet. She might completely fall apart once dialogue starts…’

Even as she warned herself not to expect too much, her heart kept racing.

“Shall we go again? The scene we just did—the part where it moves into Do-hoon’s monologue.”

At the signal to resume the reading, Hye-sim chewed over the lines she had spoken earlier.

“Don’t you care how upset your mom is? Open the door. Talk to me. Huh? Do-hoon, Yeon Do-hoon!”

This wasn’t a filming set. With no props or staging, all an actor could rely on was their own voice.

“You got into Daehan University, so what’s the problem that you have to ruin your mother’s peace for the first time in your life?!”

Hye-sim finished her lines. She had only read them, yet the image of a mother glaring at the closed door, shaking the handle violently, came vividly to mind.

Now it was Sae-yi’s turn.

“……Did I ruin your peace, Mom?”

A voice different from Sae-yi’s own—one that carried a boyish tone—took over the space.

Do-hoon stepping out of his room in funeral-like clothes appeared naturally in her mind.

“You ask what the problem is after I got into Daehan University… Of course it’s not a problem to you. It’s the university you wanted so badly. But Mom. To say I ruined your peace… did you ever give me any choices that would let me do that?”

As Do-hoon, Sae-yi let out a fragile breath, narrowing her eyes as if even this conversation was too much to endure.

Her expression flowed and shifted by the second—no, by even smaller units of time.

“I did everything you told me to. Because you smiled when I did well. And that smile was so rare. After Dad passed away, you—you, Mom—!”

She added variation to Do-hoon’s once-gentle voice.

A child who didn’t even know how to get angry, shouting for the first time under the pressure building up to his head.

With that wounded expression, a rough voice burst out.

Though emotional, her diction was clear, echoing through the empty VIP room of the atrium.

A brief silence. Then—

“You only smiled on the days I brought home my report card.”

The volume softened again. Her lines overlapped with her breath, leaving the listener hollow.

“Do-hoon, that’s because I wanted my son to do well—”

“Do you really think living like this means I’ll do well?”

Do-hoon cut his mother off with a sneer.

“It’s all wrong now. I used to smile when you smiled… But life feels like a wrong answer. Your smile, the schedule you planned for me. And even me—who thought of your smiling face first the moment I saw my acceptance result…”

“……”

“I’m sick of it all. Everything.”

The voice, flat and drained of highs and lows, declared boredom with even this conversation. This was the moment Do-hoon truly decided to end things.

‘Ah… no.’

Hye-sim’s lips trembled.

According to the script, the scene should end with the mother, unable to bear the humiliation from her child, driving Do-hoon out.

But—

‘I want to stop him…’

Do-hoon before her looked too unstable. She wanted nothing more than to hold him. She couldn’t let him walk out like this.

Even knowing she would never see him again in the script, the instinct that, as a mother in the story, she would lose her son forever sent chills down her spine.

Hye-sim hesitated to speak the final line. If this were an actual shoot, the director would have called NG.

The silence stretched on. Just as she finally calmed her thoughts and parted her tightly closed lips—

“……I’m going to take a walk. I’m sorry for yelling, Mom.”

In the same flat tone, Do-hoon delivered a line that wasn’t in the script. An ad-lib.

“Let’s eat dinner together later.”

The ending note trembled. Knowing better than anyone that he would never return once he left, he still lied—and the kind son’s pupils shook violently.

That was the end of the designated scene.

Though no one had moved while reading, the image of Do-hoon leaving through the front door lingered in their vision.

“……Hoo.”

As soon as the reading ended, Sae-yi returned to her usual self.

The bloodless face of Do-hoon faded, color returning to her cheeks.

Coming out of her immersion, Sae-yi let out a long breath toward the floor.

The atrium, once filled with only their voices, was now suffocatingly quiet.

After gathering her emotions, Sae-yi slowly lifted her head.

Across from her, Sung Hye-sim was staring straight at her. A stiff expression. The emotions within it were impossible to read.

‘Was that too much?’

When Hye-sim didn’t wrap up the scene, she had added lines on impulse. What if that ad-lib had annoyed her?

In her previous life, she had received high praise from Sung Hye-sim—but now, she had no idea what kind of evaluation awaited her.

Worried, Sae-yi looked at her aunt. Her aunt looked just as stunned as Hye-sim.

‘I think I messed up…’

Just as Sae-yi opened her mouth to apologize—

“No…”

Sung Hye-sim spoke first.

“The last line—you came up with it on the spot, didn’t you?”

“Ah, yes! It felt like things were flowing differently from the script…”

“Do-hoon dies after this scene. Then why did he say he’d eat dinner together later?”

Questions followed one after another. Watching Sae-yi think before answering, Hye-sim raised an eyebrow.

“I watched your expression before you spoke. But unlike the stage direction that says the mother should look humiliated…”

“Unlike?”

“You looked like you were about to cry and hug your son at any moment. Your ‘mother’ did. Seeing that, I thought that, at least in that moment, Do-hoon would want to comfort his mother too.”

Hye-sim’s face, listening in silence, twisted subtly.

“Do-hoon resents the mother who controlled him, but he also pities her. He couldn’t completely ignore the mother in front of him, even at the very end.”

Sae-yi bit her lip, waiting for Hye-sim’s response.

“Hmm…”

After trailing off, Sung Hye-sim suddenly reached into her handbag and rummaged around.

Then, with a gentle smile, she held something out to Sae-yi.