The Genius Arrives at the Basement
The director made the sign of the cross.
“Th-thank you, Lord!”
Of course.
“Assistant director. Did you see that?”
“I did.”
“This is a miracle. No, it’s fate. It’s not like some script-tailored perfect fit, and yet it sticks like glue! Damn it, I found the camera!”
“You’re filming it, Director!”
“Ah, right, I was filming. It’s not even a good camera, either. Hey, let’s keep this. We have to keep this!”
So the ad-lib was all right after all.
Then use me.
I’ll do well for you.
“Wow, I could die. We found a lucky charm!”
The director rushed over, scooped me up, and spun me around once.
“Gongza! Meeting you was fate!”
Huh?
“Bwahahahaha! It was you!”
He really was pleased.
But here’s the thing.
I glanced at Mom. My beautiful mother had her fists clenched tight.
Yep. She’s pissed.
I turned my head back. Director Rhy-lac, oblivious to the situation, tossed me into the air and caught me again.
“Gongza. Let’s make a movie! Let’s shoot this one, and the next one too! You were born to make films!”
Well, I do think so too.
“My muse is right here? Where were you hiding? I’ve been looking everywhere! Gongza, we have to work together!”
This is insane.
He doesn’t know where the line is when it comes to kids.
Still, I understood he was just in a state of excitement and talking nonsense nonstop.
Mom looked toward the aluminum baseball bat in the corner of the living room.
D-damn it!
I hurriedly said, “Gongza is excited too!”
“Really? Ha! Ma Gongza, you’re mine!”
No, what am I, some monster coming out of a gacha ball?
When I darted my eyes aside, I saw Mom fidgeting with the bat’s handle.
I shouted again. “S-so, um, what’s the schedule like?”
The director blinked. I forced an awkward smile.
That doesn’t sound like something a kid should say.
But it mattered that Mom’s hand had stopped moving, Director.
Clutching the hem of his jacket, I said, “I’m pretty free these days!”
I’d been getting plenty of rest lately, for all sorts of reasons.
“Oh? R-really?”
“Just tell me what to do!”
I looked at Mom and gave her a quick wink.
If things go well for me, they’ll go well for you too, right?
If it became known that I was appearing in this film, the rumors would start flying immediately.
Though, well, CF offers will probably need time to recover.
At the very least, I had to show up for filming. What kind of idler was I, at an age when acting should fit me best?
“Oh, actually, we’ve already set a script reading date.”
Oh. Hadn’t they finished casting yet?
As Mom released the bat’s handle, she said, “You’re quick.”
“If someone doesn’t show, we were going to cut them and move on.”
“My, my!”
Mom covered her mouth and laughed.
“Really?”
“Hahaha. Yes. I take script readings very seriously.”
“Even for our Gongza?”
Director Rhy-lac laughed and nodded.
“Yes!”
Wow.
I mean, of course I planned to go to the script reading, but...
Director Rhy-lac was no joke.
And earlier he was saying I was his.
So that was just talk, apparently.
Mom shrugged.
“Mm, Gongza. Do you know this? Someone who says one thing and does another isn’t very charming.”
That’s true. I completely agree.
“Yeah!”
“I-is that about me?”
“Oh, no. Come now, Gongza. Don’t become that kind of person.”
“Yeah!”
“You’re really saying it’s not me?”
Mom took me into her arms and smiled brightly.
“Yes.”
“I mean, still! If you act difficult from the script reading onward, the filming is going to get weird too. I have high hopes for this movie. Ms. Ma Soo-jung! If this falls apart, the company falls apart, and my family falls apart too.”
The first half I could understand. The second half, not so much.
No, seriously, why would my family fall apart because a movie does?
I clapped my hands. “Is this a family investment?”
At that, Director Rhy-lac staggered. The assistant director covered his mouth to hide a laugh and said, “Wow, how did you know, Gongza?”
“A man protecting his family has gravitas!”
“Pfft. He said if his wife fails, she’ll toss him out.”
He really had backed himself into a corner.
I doubt she’d really do that.
If he were going to be abandoned, he wouldn’t have invested in the first place.
Still, family investment isn’t exactly common.
The assistant director nodded awkwardly.
“Of course she would.”
Huh. Was it really true?
“S-so, this time I have to succeed! If my wife leaves me, I’ll have nowhere to go!”
Well, then.
“Help me, Gongza.”
“Yeah!”
“Pfft! Thank you! You’re an angel, an angel.”
Mom shook her head and said, “My, Gongza, don’t go casually saying ‘yeah!’ like that.”
“Please help me too, Ms. Soo-jung. I’d like to work with Gongza many times. Just as you mentioned beforehand, emotional care for the child actor is essential.”
“You know you have to be considerate overall, right?”
“How is it considerate for an adult to do for a child? It’s basic manners.”
Wow.
He really does seem like a good person.
Then again, Mom wouldn’t have even opened the script if he hadn’t been that kind of person to begin with.
Mom let out a long breath.
“Yes. Then please take good care of our Gongza too.”
Director Rhy-lac nodded and smiled broadly.
“Of course. Leave him to me.”
“You need to explain enough to him. The movie itself is dark, so even more so.”
“I know. I’ll keep things under control so there won’t be any trouble on set.”
Director Rhy-lac thumped his chest.
“Not a single strand of Gongza’s hair will be harmed. I’ll see this through to the end of filming.”
Only then did Mom seem to relax and extend her hand.
“Once again, please take good care of him.”
“Yes. Thank you for letting your precious son appear in our project.”
Wow, this is more heartwarming than I expected.
I grinned. My anticipation for the film flared back to life.
To think I’d be in this movie.
, you’re mine!
Oh, no.
I immediately lowered my head.
I’ve caught something weird.
I shook my head and threw the thought away. Catching something like that would be a disaster.
The Basement was definitely a dark film.
It’s a tragedy, this one.
It did show a glimmer of hope, but even the ending was sad.
Well, the bottom line is that the protagonists get wrung out dry.
It was intense from start to finish.
Even if the screen itself stays still.
The main characters had to collide emotionally again and again, without a break.
That kind of acting drains you dry.
I hugged the script tightly.
I’m the child actor, so it shouldn’t be too hard for me, though.
Or maybe not.
The son role I’m playing is probably exhausting too.
Still.
It’s less demanding than the mother role.
Come to think of it, the “mother” role was being played by Jung Yu-jin.
Jung Yu-jin? She’s got such a delicate image.
Of course, that was just an image.
Jung Yu-jin’s nickname was Rose Knife, after all.
She was a very strong-willed woman.
Now that I thought about it, I’d met her a few times in my previous life.
We were the kind of people who only exchanged greetings.
We didn’t have many scenes that crossed over, so we weren’t especially close.
The rumors said she was sensitive, but she never really seemed that way to me.
I unfolded the script. The “son” appeared almost entirely with the “mother.”
I absolutely need to get close to her.
Well, I could act without being close to her.
But if possible, it’s better to be on good terms.
In The Basement, the son and mother had to stay close the whole time.
I was about to reread the section I was supposed to practice today when Mr. Deok-su’s voice rumbled low.
“You can’t do that.”
Ah.
“Reading a book in a car while it’s moving gives you worse eyesight.”
I quietly closed the script.
Reading a script in the van is practically part of daily life, though...
Still, he was looking out for me because I was young.
“Besides, Gongza has almost memorized the script already.”
I smiled brightly.
“There aren’t many lines!”
Instead, the emotional expression was extremely delicate.
“I don’t know much about acting, but isn’t that kind of performance even harder?”
Oh, Mr. Deok-su was sharp.
Right.
Depending on the case, that was exactly true for this movie.
“I think so!”
Mr. Deok-su let out a long sigh.
“I’m worried.”
“It’ll be okay.”
I hugged the script tightly.
What matters is that I’m the lead here.
I wasn’t a supporting role; I was the lead. There wasn’t even an older version of me in the story. Not just some child actor, but a full-fledged protagonist. This role belonged entirely to me.
“Gongza seems excited.”
“Yeah! There’s a lot I want to achieve in this movie!”
I folded my fingers down one by one and counted them.
“First, I want my acting to be recognized.”
“You act well already. You’ve been recognized for a long time.”
I shook my head.
“Not enough.”
Mr. Deok-su adjusted his sunglasses.
“I see. Not enough.”
“Yeah. Acting well isn’t enough.”
Was simply being a little good enough to carve your name into film history?
You had to be incredibly good.
That wasn’t all.
“I want to act well and help Mom.”
“Ms. Ma Soo-jung?”
“Yeah. My mom still gets things said about her that she doesn’t deserve just because I appear on TV.”
It had died down a lot, but there were still people saying she was cashing in on her child.
“I know Mom doesn’t care.”
But me being annoyed by it was another matter entirely.
I can’t let this affect Mom’s filmography.
If anything, I should help.
Well, compared to my previous life, Mom’s filmography is already excellent.
Still, we couldn’t stop here.
I don’t remember it clearly, but if this is my previous life, Mom probably ended up taking a long break because of Sungjin Group’s accounting fraud.
I’ll shorten that period dramatically.
Well, it’ll take time before the movie is released, though.
Even so, once word spread that I was filming something, casting offers would start coming in one by one.
Mr. Deok-su muttered as he drove, “I see. So you’re thinking about even that sort of thing.”
Oh, no. His voice was already thick with moisture.
“Please don’t cry.”
“Pfft. Yes. I’ll try to hold it in while I’m driving.”
Huh. So you really can hold it in while driving. Good to know.
Mr. Deok-su kept letting out stifled groans.
“Hrk, pfft. Huhk.”
Honestly.
Though, if you think about it, this is a chance.
I had something to ask Mr. Deok-su.
“Sir. I need a favor.”
“S-speak, hrrk, huff.”
That probably meant I should just say it roughly.
“At Gongza’s script reading, I want to go in alone.”
“That, no, hrrp!”
That was probably a rough way of saying no.
“Sir, if I want to get close to the others, it’s better to be alone.”
“Hrrrgh. Th-that’s...”
That definitely meant something bad would happen if I did that.
“It’ll be fine. Mom said so. Go over the wall.”
Well, child actors generally didn’t sit alone during script readings.
But I need to get close to Jung Yu-jin, and if someone’s watching, that’s not great.
Mr. Deok-su said nothing. I smiled brightly and said, “It’ll be fine.”
It seemed the teacher had stopped crying, because he took in a desperate breath.
How long had passed like that? Mr. Deok-su said in a trembling voice, “Hrk. I’ll give you a safety bell.”
Oh, so those exist too.
“Thank you!”
“Press it if anything happens. I’ll run to you.”
“Yeah!”
The car arrived soon after. I climbed out of the child seat with a trembling heart.
Nice weather.
It was perfect weather for practicing a script.
* * *
I walked toward the door.
Once I go in, the actors and production staff will be there, right?
Maybe I should greet them politely.
Just as Mr. Deok-su was about to open the door, I heard a voice.
“Aren’t people overreacting way too much? That tiny kid’s a genius? Ridiculous. Who decided he was a genius?”