Chapter 163: Collapse (2)
Chapter 163: Collapse (2)
Creak—
The moment he got home, Gong Hajin shoved the front door open roughly.
A luxury penthouse overlooking the Han River.
This lavish space that proved his success felt especially wretched today.
“...Haah, fuck.”
The phone in his hand slammed straight into the marble floor.
The screen shattered into pieces, sending fragments flying everywhere.
But instead of making him feel better, it only made his chest feel even more clogged and suffocating.
He walked into the living room and reached for the display cabinet.
Crash!
This time, a bottle of premium liquor smashed against the wall.
The sharp smell of alcohol spread through the living room along with the glass shards.
It was an expensive drink worth millions of won, but that fact meant absolutely nothing to Gong Hajin right now.
“Everyone’s really being fucking disgusting...”
The Cannes Film Festival.
Just the name of it made his stomach churn.
That fleeting moment at the awards ceremony when he had deluded himself into thinking his name would be called.
The humiliation of making a fool out of his own bloated expectations kept floating through his mind again and again.
And the applause, cheers, and praise pouring down on Ryu Sunho.
Above all else—
That face.
Ryu Sunho’s face as he gave his acceptance speech after winning Best Actor.
He could not stand how revolting that expression was, that face pretending to be relaxed and composed.
“That bastard with nothing to his name...”
Gong Hajin gritted his teeth.
Innate talent.
That was what had brought him this far.
It had been fine for him to look down on others.
The world had always chosen him anyway.
He was one of the chosen people who had the right to live that way.
And honestly, whatever he thought inside, what did it matter as long as he never showed it on the outside?
He had lived however they wanted him to, putting on whatever face they wished to see.
But at some point, the world stopped revolving around him.
A rumor that had recently begun circulating openly among industry insiders.
Gong Hajin keeps getting the scripts Ryu Sunho turned down first. If Ryu Sunho passes, then they go to Gong Hajin.
“Bullshit.”
A dry laugh leaked out of Gong Hajin’s mouth.
“There’s no fucking way I’m really cleaning up after that bastard, is there?”
He did not know whether it was true or not.
But the fact that people were thinking that way at all felt vile.
His hand trembled faintly.
He picked up a shard of glass from the floor.
It was sharp.
Just like him right now.
He stared at it for a moment, then threw it back onto the floor.
Clink—
Soon, he stood in front of the mirror covering one wall of the living room.
The face of South Korea’s top star, always gentle and full of ease, was nowhere to be seen.
Instead, only an ugly-faced man remained, his eyes hollow and his skin sallow, reeking of inferiority.
A few days later.
Inside an acting department lecture hall at an arts university in Seoul.
The tiered lecture hall was packed so tightly with students there was barely room to step.
Normally, lecture time would have bored them.
But today, the atmosphere was different.
The students buzzed among themselves with excited expressions.
“Hey, did you hear the rumor? Who the professor’s bringing today?”
“I did. He gave us a hint, remember? He said, ‘the man of Cannes.’”
“If it’s Cannes... then isn’t it obviously Ryu Sunho?”
“No way, Ryu Sunho’s coming?”
“This is insane. I’ve already seen Mueon:ga three times. If I see him in person, I’m seriously going to pass out.”
As Mueon:ga raced down the road to box-office success and Ryu Sunho’s stock rose as though it would punch through the ceiling, every aspiring actor had begun admiring him and taking him as a role model.
His acting had become both something to analyze and something to yearn for.
“No, but did you see that pupil acting in this movie? How is that even possible?”
“If he comes later, ask him. Ask how he trained for it.”
“I seriously hope they make the Q&A long.”
“I’m getting at least one autograph before I leave.”
Then the sharp click-clack of high heels echoed through the gap in the door.
He’s here!
Everyone’s gaze fixed on the entrance.
Hundreds of shining eyes waited for the door to open.
The anticipation had already passed its limit.
Rattle—
Today’s star finally appeared.
Perfectly styled pomaded hair and a sharply tailored suit.
Anyone looking at him would see the appearance of a successful top star.
But—
“......”
The atmosphere in the lecture hall was subtle.
At the exact moment cheers should have exploded, only an awkward silence drifted through the room.
Because it was not Ryu Sunho they had been waiting for.
The man who had entered was Gong Hajin.
“Ah...”
Someone let out a small sigh.
Of course, Gong Hajin was also a top star and one of the finest actors around.
But right now, the students’ expectations had been fixed on Ryu Sunho.
The eyes that had been burning with excitement instantly settled and cooled.
Gong Hajin sensed that shift in the air with painful sharpness.
The name he had heard from outside the door.
And the temperature that had turned cold the moment he walked in.
...Arrogant little shits.
A thin line appeared briefly between Gong Hajin’s brows, then vanished in an instant.
He forced the corners of his mouth upward and walked to the center.
“Nice to meet you. I’m actor Gong Hajin.”
“Waaaaaaah!”
The cheers came late, and they sounded dry somehow.
Gong Hajin tightened his grip on the microphone.
There was a bandage wrapped around the back of his hand, as though he had scraped it somewhere.
“Today, I’d like to talk about the essence of acting.”
He began the lecture while pretending to be relaxed, but inside, he was boiling.
Even so, he gritted his teeth and focused professionally on delivering the material.
Method acting, vocalization, character analysis, and more.
It was all textbook content.
About an hour passed.
The theory portion ended, and it was time for questions and answers.
“Feel free to ask anything.”
One male student shot his hand up high.
“Yes, the male student with glasses over there.”
“I assume you watched Mueon:ga, which was invited to Cannes alongside you. What did you think of actor Ryu Sunho’s performance in it? I felt it was incredible how he carried the entire narrative with just expressions and breathing, without a single line of dialogue. As a fellow actor, I’m curious how you saw it.”
Gong Hajin’s eyebrow twitched.
He adjusted his grip on the microphone and paused for a moment, then opened his mouth in a cold voice.
“That’s an interesting question.”
He continued speaking with a faint smile.
“Well... since he even received Best Actor, of course I think he did well. That said, these days the media tends to overpackage emotional blankness as the beauty of empty space, but I think that’s closer to glorifying an incomplete admiration people themselves can’t even clearly explain.”
A stir ran through the lecture hall.
But Gong Hajin did not stop.
The longer he spoke, the more thorns began to bloom in his words.
“Ah, and since overpackaging came up, let me add this too. These days, actors seem too desperate to become stars as quickly as possible. Rather than fundamentals, they count on shortcuts.”
Gong Hajin wrote fundamentals harshly on the chalkboard.
The chalk let out a shrill scrape as if it might snap.
“Actors are people whose job is to express and convey the lives of others. We’re not lackeys who fool people into buying products, are we? We shouldn’t be trying to cover up the essence with flashy wrapping paper. You need to watch yourselves and ask whether you’re blinding yourselves with secondary things and cutting down your own value. Understood?”
For a moment, a silence like cold water being poured down settled over the lecture hall.
The students held their breath and glanced at one another.
The student who had asked the question slowly lowered his hand with an embarrassed look.
Sensing the strange mood, Gong Hajin smiled again.
A little too much.
“Haha. Well, that’s just my personal opinion. These days, after all, it’s a world full of all kinds of tastes.”
He pretended to brush it off lightly, but the stiffened atmosphere did not loosen easily.
At the same time, one female student who had been secretly recording the lecture beneath her desk quietly pressed the stop button.
A black Carnival sped along Olympic-daero.
I looked out the window and sank deep into my seat.
We were on the way to Singgeut Ice Cream headquarters for a meeting.
They had blasted out major news coverage about the merger with Haechi Ice Cream, so now it looked like they were planning to ride that momentum and seriously discuss the summer ad campaign.
That aside—
“Hmm~ hmm-hmm~”
Team Leader Jo Sehun, sitting in the passenger seat, would not stop humming.
He was checking the schedule on his tablet PC while grinning nonstop.
The corners of his mouth looked ready to hook onto his ears.
“Ah, seriously, I’m telling you, I’ve never had this much fun working before. Sunho, thanks to you, my shoulders are rising so high they don’t even know where the sky ends. I look about ready to ascend.”
The makeup artist and stylist sitting in the back chimed in as well, openly showing their delight.
“I just put it right there on my Instagram profile. ‘Ryu Sunho’s dedicated makeup artist.’ And then, I’m telling you, I gained a thousand followers in just one day.”
“No, these days, even if you don’t write it there, people figure it out like ghosts and send DMs anyway. Sunho’s impact is absolutely insane right now. Everything he wears sells out.”
Just as they said, my influence was breaking its own peak every day.
As Mueon:ga shattered box-office records day after day, new articles kept pouring out without pause.
At the same time, reactions praising my acting ability also kept coming nonstop.
After watching the movie, I totally get why Cannes made such an unusual decision;; How do you watch this and not give him Best Actor?
No, but Ryu Sunho’s acting seriously feels new every time I watch it. How does he pull off a role like this with that face?
⌞There’s something so good about that sharp feeling you get when a face that looks good and gentle does evil acting..
⌞Agreed. It’s way scarier when someone who doesn’t look like they would do it commits evil acts with an empty gaze like it’s nothing, rather than someone openly screaming “I’m the villain!!”
⌞Wow, this is exactly it lol
But looking at the timeline, didn’t Doctor Princess and Mueon:ga overlap during filming?
⌞For real?
⌞Holy shit lol, then during the day he was acting as Han Jushin summoning the Black Flame Dragon, and at night he was acting as Gu Sunwoo?
⌞It’s a miracle he didn’t end up with a split personality. Does he have separate acting switches in his head or something;;
⌞How do you act two roles that are complete opposites at the same time?
People were in shock over the fact that I had perfectly pulled off two completely opposite characters.
Thanks to that, the figures in the status window had also changed in a meaningful way.
【The percentage of people in the country who currently consider you the best actor is ‘21%.’】
It had shot up from 11% to 21% in an instant.
It was a pretty big jump, but compared to the visible reactions, it was still a slightly disappointing number.
Then again, the people writing posts online and leaving comments were only a tiny fraction of the general public.
To change the perception rooted in the subconscious of a wider number of people, I might need a little more time and a few more projects.
After all, it was only from Doctor Princess onward that I had begun being properly recognized for my acting.
I still had a long way to go.
I did see data like that recently.
Once the goal of [Becoming the Best Actor in the Country] began to feel realistic, I looked up some statistics.
There was a survey released by a certain polling agency.
For the question, “Which actor has the best acting skills in South Korea,” just as expected, Gong Hajin ranked first.
What surprised me more was the fact that he had held first place continuously for the past five years.
And with an overwhelming vote share of over 50% at that.
The title of national actor had not been given to him for nothing.
Although this time I had beaten Gong Hajin at Cannes and won Best Actor, it still did not look easy to overtake him in one stroke, because of the image and career he had built up over such a long time.
It might have been different if we had faced off directly through acting in the same work.
But since we had each excelled in different films, people could always think the outcome had been decided by differences in the directors’ abilities, differences in the scripts, and so on.
Then if that’s the case, would it be better if my next project were the same one as Gong Hajin’s?
I thought about it for a moment, but realistically, a chance like that probably would not come easily.
Just fitting the two of us into one project would involve too many things to worry about, starting with appearance fees.
Then should I take the longer route and steadily build up an award record on the same level as Gong Hajin’s...?
I finished sorting out my thoughts.
Then, while monitoring things a little more, one provocative title on the list of popular community posts caught my eye.
[Latest update on Gong Hajin taking shots at Ryu Sunho ㄷㄷ]
...What’s this?
The post included an audio file along with a summary of what had been said.
And the comments section was burning hot.
Is this really Gong Hajin?
What’s wrong with him?
Is he jealous because Ryu Sunho’s almost a whole generation younger than him?
He seriously doesn’t act his age;
;