Show Me Your Acting
Yes — show me your acting.
Right up until the day of the audition, Future Sight had never once shown me myself performing.
Did that mean I could land the role without its help? That having given so generously all this time, it was now telling me to go out there and do it myself? That when the moment came, it would take care of things on its own, so I should just charge ahead?
Unable to reach a conclusion, I let the days slip past me.
Of course, I never slacked off on imagining scenes while building them out through lines from the script, rehearsing in my head again and again.
Audition day —
"So you're Hajin. I've been wanting to meet you."
Hong Jung-woo, who had arrived before me, broke into a wide smile and shook my hand.
He was a strikingly handsome boy with the same strong-featured face as his father — who had been a famous beauty in his youth — layered with the refined air of a boy raised in a wealthy household.
The remarkable looks that would one day melt the hearts of countless female fans as a handsome actor in his thirties had already been fully formed in childhood.
"Director, he really is good-looking."
"What did I tell you? I said you wouldn't be the best anymore."
"You're right. A face like that plus acting talent — that just shouldn't be allowed."
And with that, he smiled brightly.
There was no envy or jealousy in it — only the curiosity of someone who had just met his own kind.
In my past life, I never heard a word about him having character problems, but in truth, our entire relationship had consisted of passing greetings on set. This was the first real conversation we'd ever had, across both of my lives.
"Nice to meet you, Jung-woo. Personally, I think you're the better-looking one."
"Right? Ask me again when you're ten — for now, I think I've got you by a liiittle bit."
Grinning, he wrapped an arm around my neck and ruffled my hair.
He was more easygoing than I'd expected.
"Win or lose today, let's be friends from here on out."
"Okay."
So this person really did see today's audition as a duel.
Two people from the investment firm and Director Kim Si-woon sat side by side, with lead actor Choi Min-ho seated a short distance away.
"So this is Hajin. Wow — how does a six-year-old look like that?"
"A face like that playing piano — it's exactly the image I had in my head when I was young. Everything I described, right?"
"Exactly. Though he'd probably need to lose a bit more weight to match that face of mine."
"Don't talk like it's already a done deal. Jung-woo's here too."
"Oops, almost forgot."
My eyes fell on the script beside Hong Jung-woo.
There wasn't a single page that hadn't been worn soft from handling, and sticky notes clung to it in clusters. Watching it, I suddenly found myself wondering why he was trying so hard to win this role — enough to study the script even now, mid-audition. A boy of Hong Jung-woo's caliber should have films lining up begging him to appear.
"Why do you want this part so badly?"
"Honestly? I came to see you."
"What?"
"My agency happened to get the script. I liked that it was the child role for Senior Min-ho, and I wanted to be in a Kim Si-woon film. But then the director said he already had a child actor in mind."
Hong Jung-woo glanced toward Director Kim and went on.
"If the director has an actor in mind, there's nothing you can do about it, right? But the more I heard about you, the stranger it got. Six years old, and the only thing you'd been in was a kids' show. You weren't even an actor, technically."
So he had asked Director Kim why he'd chosen that kid.
'The way he plays piano fit my picture exactly. I watched his kids' show, and his acting was so overflowing it almost felt wasteful. In that audition footage I saw recently, the aura of a real actor was unmistakable. Enough that I wanted to try shaping him myself.'
So he had seen that commercial audition video.
"I thought about what I was doing when I was six. Back then I only did whatever the PDs and directors told me to — I never once thought about acting itself. But you? You'd already earned a director's recognition at that age."
My grip tightened on the script in my hands.
"I'd only just started wanting to act well when I heard about you. That's why I wanted to see the acting that had already been recognized at the age I was only beginning. I kept wondering — what did the director see in you?"
Frankly, I was stunned.
Me, I'd carried the passion for acting I'd built struggling through my twenties back into this life. But Hong Jung-woo had arrived at that same thing entirely on his own — at the tender age of ten.
He'd probably ask what I was doing at that age, but honestly, I found myself wondering if this kid had regressed too. What child actor seriously wrestles with the meaning of acting at ten years old?
"So show me. Show me the acting that convinced the director."
With those earnest eyes fixed on me, there was nothing to do but nod.
"Who wants to go first?"
"I'd like Hajin to go first. You've all seen plenty of my acting already."
"Shall we, then? Hajin, are you ready?"
"Yes, Director."
I sat down at the piano waiting before the judges.
Staring blankly at the keys, I summoned the scene I had pictured when reading the script.
And then the space before my eyes brightened, and a dazzling light wrapped around me.
Today, as always, I pounded the keys, worn down by the abuse they called lessons.
The genius talent everyone had blessed me with was, to me, a curse.
"Haaah~"
An empty room.
The white and black keys looked like chains — coiling around my throat, gnawing away even the hours I slept.
I lifted my head, flexing my fingers, which had gone numb.
Beyond the piano, the empty space shimmered and warped.
What is that?
Something faintly glowing within the wavering air. Arms attached. Legs, too… and a head above them.
A child my own age.
I couldn't tell if it was a boy or a girl. Its eyes were endlessly red, its skin frighteningly pale.
To get away from it, I scooted to the very edge of the bench — lost my balance, and tumbled to the floor along with the overturned chair.
My knee cracked against the ground, but there was no time to feel the pain.
Because it was coming closer.
[So you can see me.]
"Uh… uhh… ahh…"
The sound wouldn't come out of my throat properly.
I was too terrified.
[Don't be afraid. I have no power to hurt you.]
"A g-ghost…?"
[I don't know what humans call such things. Just… something that has passed through death.]
As it spoke, it looked me up and down.
A chill crawled over my skin; gooseflesh rose all over me.
[How pitiful. You had to go and see what must not be seen.]
"I'm… pitiful?"
[To lay eyes on one who has passed through death means that you, too, will pass through it.]
"I'm going to die? Me?"
The thing nodded quietly.
When I was locked in my room after being beaten for practicing carelessly, I truly had wanted to die. More than once, I'd thought that if I killed myself, at least it wouldn't hurt anymore.
[It will not be by your own hand.]
Could it read my mind?
"I won't kill myself. That's just how worn out I was."
"No — what I mean is, you have seen one who was murdered, so you will die at another's hands. If you were meant to die by your own hand, you would never have been able to see me."
I couldn't breathe.
I was going to be murdered?
"Who's going to kill me? When am I going to die?"
[I don't know.]
It thrust its face right up to mine.
My whole body shook uncontrollably.
The room was already steeped in cold, yet cold sweat broke out on my skin.
[You… would be a waste, to pass through death like I did.]
It pressed a finger to its head, thinking something over carefully.
[Do you always practice at this hour?]
"I couldn't finish my practice quota today, so I'm here."
[Then, the day after tomorrow — skip your quota and come here. I'll return at the same time.]
Before my eyes, it slowly began to fade.
How could it just leave like that?
Why did it tell me to come back?
I stared, hollow-eyed, at the place where the child had vanished — and then the light wrapped around me once more.
When I came to, I was sitting beside the fallen chair, trembling uncontrollably.
Future Sight had triggered at precisely the moment I was supposed to perform — and it had overlapped with real time instead of showing me the future.
Not the future… no. It bled into the present.
Everything around me was strangely silent. I turned my head toward the judges' table.
The two producers, Director Kim, and actor Choi Min-ho sat frozen solid.
Anyone walking in would have thought Medusa herself had just passed through.
I turned the other way and found Hong Jung-woo biting down on his lip, his face a picture of disbelief.
He must have seized his script with tremendous force — it was crumpled past all recognition.
Not a single person was reacting normally.
Wait. Don't tell me…
I hadn't performed inside a space wrapped in light.
I had clearly been locked in that room, playing the piano in agony until I met the ghost. I had heard the ominous prophecy that I was going to die, and shaken all over, paralyzed with fear.
And every single person here had watched that performance.
Director Kim Si-woon came sprinting over, seized my shoulders, and shook me.
"Hajin, you… did you see something over there? A ghost, even? How did you hold a conversation that naturally? Did you peek inside my head? How can you tear the thoughts straight out of my skull and act them out like that?!"
"Hyung, you'll scare the kid. What are you getting so worked up for?"
After Choi Min-ho pried the director off me, he turned to me gently.
"Hajin, are you all right? Just now, it looked like you couldn't climb back out of the acting."
They all assumed I'd been lost in method acting.
I had truly gone into that scene and come back.
My body was shaking so hard I could barely stay upright.
I somehow dragged myself back to my seat and sat there gulping air, and Hong Jung-woo settled in beside me.
"Breathe slow, then let it out… there you go. I get winded like that too, sometimes, when I'm doing emotional scenes."
This wasn't about being buried in emotion from method acting.
I simply couldn't shake off the lingering weight of meeting a ghost in that locked room.
Is this a side effect? Or is it just because I'm still too young?
"It was hard just watching you. Watching you act, I could barely breathe. You really are six? What kind of six-year-old acts like that… haah, I genuinely don't have the words."
His face held frustration and exhilaration in equal measure.
"There was one kid I was determined to get past before I grew up — and now there's you, too. That makes two. It really shouldn't grow any more than that, haha."
"Who's the first one?"
"Han Sora."
Wherever you go, genius child actors are unavoidable, it seems.
I turned to Director Kim Si-woon, who was still sitting on the floor with a dazed expression.
"Director? I'm dropping out of today's audition."