The TTN Boy
"What are you talking about? You're giving up the audition?"
"After watching Ha-jin act, I lost all confidence I could do better than that. You think so too, don't you, Director?"
"……"
Director Kim Si-woon had no rebuttal.
That was how overwhelmingly Byun Ha-jin's performance had dominated the room.
And so the acting duel disguised as an audition came to a somewhat anticlimactic end, with Ha-jin the clear victor.
I lay staring blankly at the ceiling in the darkened room.
Sleep wouldn't come.
The shock of today's audition still hadn't worn off.
"Ha-jin still can't get up?"
"I'm sorry, Director."
"You were acting, so what's there to be sorry about? Hyun-seok, go out and bring his mother. Looks like we'll have to carry him out."
And so I ended up being carried all the way to the parking lot.
When you sink deep into method acting, sometimes the on/off switch fails to work when you return to reality.
Actors call this being devoured by the role.
In severe cases, it can even interfere with everyday life.
That's why a veteran actor famous for his method work once said, "There's only a sheet of paper between a method actor and a schizophrenic."
'I couldn't get out of the boy who saw a ghost.'
I'd assumed it was the aftereffect of that supernatural phenomenon — going into the script and coming back out.
But the boy still trembling before the ghost refused to leave me.
With my acting ability, merely playing the part should have been enough, yet I'd fallen in deeper than expected.
What was I supposed to do when the scenes written in the script unfolded right before my eyes like a VR game?
[Should we really make ourselves miserable in real life just to perform misery on screen? Do you have to become a madman to play madness? Acting is nothing more than the craft of convincingly imitating something — there's no need to become the person itself. That's why I'm against method acting.]
Those were the words of the teacher who taught me acting in my past life.
He always said acting must never spill over into your daily life.
He was right.
One audition, and my everyday life was hanging by a thread.
What if this happened on an actual film set?
Was I really going to lose my mind like this?
For the first time since my regression, I felt afraid of acting itself — and there was no obvious way to fix it.
Because Future Sight dragged me into the world of acting whether I willed it or not.
"Yawwwn~"
Worry aside, I was so drowsy my eyes were shutting on their own.
Let me just sleep, I thought, closing my eyes — and something wrapped itself around my body.
A warm light, like being held in my mother's arms.
'Where is it taking me this time… mmmh.'
It was a small practice room, flooded with sunlight.
The voice of whoever sat before me was gentle.
I couldn't see their face.
"This might be difficult for you, you know?"
"That's okay. I read difficult books just fine."
"Really? Then I'll walk you through it — ask me right away if there's anything you don't understand."
"Yes, sir."
They were explaining post-dramatic stress (PDS), a psychological aftereffect actors sometimes suffer after performances.
They even compared it to PTSD — post-traumatic stress disorder.
Naturally dense material for a six-year-old, but I was a six-year-old with twenty-two years under my belt.
Remembering the acting lessons of my past life, I listened to every word with a solemn expression.
"Ha-jin, you really are something. You've got that look like you understand every word."
"Not every word. At first it was hard — like reading a medical paper."
"It's from the abstract of a medical paper. I never expected you to guess the source. Are you seriously six?"
"I'm six. The kind of six-year-old who reads difficult books."
Amused, they ruffled my hair.
"But how does any of this help me? All I have to do is not black out on set."
"That condition is the aftereffect of drowning too deep in emotion while acting. Doctors write entire papers about it — actors experience it all the time. It's an occupational hazard, really."
"Did the doctors figure out a way to fix it?"
"No. There's still no surefire cure."
"Then what am I supposed to do?"
"What do you mean, what? Why else do you think I brought you here — so we could figure it out together?"
I was about to ask exactly what we were supposed to do here when I couldn't get the words out.
The bright light had wrapped around my body once more.
.
.
.
I opened my eyes and it was morning.
I had dreamed — not of acting, but of a true Future Sight.
A prophecy that someone would help me.
'But who? The least it could do is tell me who's going to help me.'
Mom opened the door and came in.
"Ha-jin, if you don't get up right now, kindergarten will— oh my. Our son's already up?"
My day began alongside Mom, who gazed at me with a look of wonder.
Even at his youngest, a kindergartner has his duties.
.
.
.
The Ohsung Techwin commercial starring Kang Ji-hoon — the kid who'd knocked me down — finally hit the airwaves.
Kang Ji-hoon's acting was ordinary, but a seasoned adult actor's lived-in performance, Director Lee Joo-young's comic direction, and the stylish visuals were more than enough to capture the public's attention.
"He really does shoot well. Now I get why Ohsung Techwin keeps hiring you even though they hate your guts."
"Why does Ohsung hate me?"
Director Park Myung-chul had come looking for his junior, Director Lee Joo-young, for the first time in a while.
"Who likes a stiff-necked bastard around the client?"
"I'm only stiff with Joo Se-hee, that witch. Above her I can't even lift my head. I have to make a living too, you know."
"For a guy who trash-talked the PR team leader, you pulled that shoot off pretty smoothly, though?"
"That's my career on the line. No matter how insufferable the client is, I get the job done properly."
"As you should. If you'd slacked off over that audition mess, you'd be dead to me."
"Why would you kill me, hyung? You're not even the client."
"If you half-ass it, our head-to-head doesn't mean anything, does it? Mine starts airing next week too."
"Oh, the one with Ha-jin and So-ra?"
Despite being his junior, Lee Joo-young was in no way his inferior in talent, and Park Myung-chul regarded him as a rival.
The better a rival performs, the harder you push yourself.
"I thought we'd air around the same time, but you're a little late."
"CG. Got bounced back twice."
"By SJ Telecom?"
"No. By me."
The image of Director Park Myung-chul roasting his CG team alive flashed before my junior's eyes.
"So how does it look to you, hyung? Did the two of them turn out well?"
"Heh heh heh, what's there to say? Even without the CG laid in, it's a painting. A painting."
"Show me that painting too. You've got a rough cut lying around, don't you?"
"Only a few days left — wait and see it then. Today I came to make a bet."
"What bet?"
"What else? Who makes the better commercial."
"How am I supposed to beat a commercial starring So-ra and Ha-jin? We're not even starting from the same line."
"Oh, come off it. Since when does Kang Ji-hoon drag anyone down? And with Ahn Jung-hoon in it too, why are we talking about starting lines? That unsure of yourself?"
"Who says I'm unsure?"
As a rule, men are creatures helplessly weak to provocation.
"How exactly are we settling this bet? Should we line up judges?"
"No judges needed. You're going to Cannes Lions next year, right?"
"If the company sends me, I go."
Cannes Lions was the nickname for the French international advertising festival — the so-called Olympics of the advertising world.
One of the world's three great advertising awards, alongside America's Clio Awards and the New York Festivals.
"I'm going next year too. Let's decide it by our ranking there."
"Hmm… not a bad idea."
A Korean ad had won in the Film category a few years back, so it was entirely within the realm of possibility.
"Let's decide after we see the spots airing next week. There's that outdoor billboard visible from your company building, right? It's going up there too."
Lee Bo-ra, an ordinary office worker who'd nearly dozed past her stop on the subway.
"Haaah, if I pulled overtime, the least they could do is let me come in late."
Grumbling, she passed through the ticket gates and headed for the stairs.
"And why is it so cold out? I swear, it's driving me insane."
Thinking of her warm office, she quick-stepped up the stairs.
Emerging from the subway, she found people frozen mid-step, staring up at the sky.
'Is something floating up there? What's gotten into everyone?'
Following the crowd's gaze, she discovered it wasn't the sky at all.
It was the massive display screen mounted on the media tower across the street.
'A movie… ad? Or a music video?'
An emerald sea — and a murky gray sky that had no business being that clear.
Someone was walking toward the line where the two met.
A small child, elementary school age, by the look of him.
The searing contrast of colors and the stylish camera work made it impossible to look away.
The camera pulled back from the boy wading slowly through water up to his knees.
As if sensing someone's gaze, the boy turned his head toward the screen.
"Huh… aaaaah—!"
Gasps erupted from all directions — not just from Lee Bo-ra.
Some women clapped a hand over their mouths, eyes wide with shock.
The reaction was no different when a girl appeared across the sea, gazing this way with sorrowful eyes.
Not a single person moved from their spot; they all stood riveted to the billboard.
Two children conveying emotion with nothing but their expressions and their eyes — not one line of dialogue.
From pity and frustration and despair, to hope rising between them, and on to pure elation —
and when the two finally crossed the bridge and met, a few people broke into applause.
A world, reconnected — TTN
It was the resurrection of the TTN campaign, silent ever since actress Lim Eun-jung's departure.
A mere thirty seconds of running time — but more than enough to steal the hearts of everyone on their morning commute.
From that day on, I went from being one of the animal friends in kindergarten promos to the TTN Boy, known to every man, woman, and child in the nation.