Chapter 14
Chapter 14
Translator: Penny
Chapter 14
It would be a lie to say I didn't look down on her.
Even though she was under Luna Entertainment, a major agency, all she'd done was appear in a nutritional supplement CF and a music video.
Unlike Min Da-yeon herself, she was a complete novice who had never even played a minor role in a daily drama, let alone snagged a lead role in a movie.
She had become a big topic online as the Match Girl reborn in the 21st century, but Min Da-yeon herself thought she could do that level of acting.
Yes, if it was the kind of acting that Min Da-yeon was thinking of.
The same kind of acting that Min Da-yeon had learned and practiced since she was even younger, the kind she had been told she had a talent for.
It wouldn't have been much different from the Kim Jia that Min Da-yeon had shown in front of the camera a few minutes ago.
"...Are you okay?"
-Flinch.
Just five words.
Even though the more emotional and immersive lines hadn't even started yet.
'What...is that?'
Min Da-yeon could sense that Lee Ha-eun's acting was different from her own.
The awkwardness or inexperience that should have been felt from Ha-eun, who had almost no acting experience, was nowhere to be found. Only naturalness was felt.
A movie is, after all, a fictional world.
Therefore, a very small amount of awkwardness is an implicit agreement between the inside and outside of the screen.
Even the most famous actors inevitably have a slight gap with their characters.
They can never become the character itself, which is why they practice so hard.
So, that is...
That unpleasant form, which doesn't feel like it's been faked at all.
"Yes, I'm okay. Even if she's like that, she wouldn't want to kill the child she gave birth to."
It was definitely not the kind of acting that Min Da-yeon knew.
It couldn't be grouped into the same category as Min Da-yeon's acting, which was the result of practice, learning, effort, and education.
If I had to put a name on that strange and bizarre thing, it would be experience.
It looked like she was experiencing the things that Kim Jia had to go through in Next Door Neighbor in real time, and expressing what she felt as Kim Jia, not as the child actor Lee Ha-eun, in front of the camera.
Unlike Min Da-yeon's acting, no prior learning was required.
All she had to do was express the emotions she felt as Kim Jia and the words she wanted to say in front of the camera.
'How...how?'
Min Da-yeon had been analyzing the script she had been given, as she always had, to play Kim Jia in Next Door Neighbor.
Picturing the scene in the script in her head.
She had been constantly thinking about which facial expressions and gestures would best suit Kim Jia.
She was confident that she had put in the most effort of all the child actors who came to the screen test.
That's how serious Min Da-yeon was about the role of Kim Jia.
But, why?
Why?
"...What's with you now? Didn't you know that, Mister?"
Even though it was the exact same line that Min Da-yeon had said before.
Was it because the depth of the emotion conveyed was different?
In Next Door Neighbor, Kim Jia is, in a word, an unfortunate girl.
Even her own mother, her only family, abused her on a daily basis.
Nevertheless, in order to live a normal life like everyone else.
She completely abandoned the fragile appearance that a child should naturally have.
She brainwashed herself by saying that her mother's violence, which she had already experienced countless times, was nothing.
"But, well, it's not broken, so I'll be able to go to school."
In the illusion that she was living well without any problems.
Kim Jia is a girl who imprisons herself in an illusion that easily collapses even with the momentary sympathy revealed by Jin Kang-shik's silence.
And Min Da-yeon has been working for days to play such a Kim Jia.
She already knew better than anyone else what kind of appearance was most like Kim Jia.
That's why she couldn't take her eyes off Ha-eun in front of her.
That's because Ha-eun was now completely the same person as the Kim Jia that Min Da-yeon was thinking of.
She tried to pull down the skirt she was wearing to hide the scars on her legs.
Still unable to rest assured, she squatted down on the hard ground.
She slowly raised her head towards Jin Kang-shik, who was still looking down at her, revealing eyes with a slight amount of moisture.
"I'm really okay. So, don't look at me like that... It makes me feel like I'm really pathetic."
The very image of Kim Jia, desperately struggling not to weaken.
"Cut!"
At the sound of Kwon Jong-hyuk's okay sign, Min Da-yeon clenched her fist without realizing it.
Soon, her neatly trimmed nails pierced her palm, but she didn't even feel the pain.
All of Min Da-yeon's senses were focused only on Ha-eun.
She had never heard of this kind of acting.
A type of acting that only functions as acting when it becomes a being that completely matches the character.
It was impossible unless she became a completely different person from head to toe.
But, in Min Da-yeon's eyes, Ha-eun really became a different person for a moment while acting.
The personality of Lee Ha-eun was nowhere to be found, and the personality of Kim Jia, who had lived a reality more like a nightmare than a dream for a long time, filled the void.
Every line that came out of Ha-eun's mouth was what Kim Jia said.
The expressions and gestures that Ha-eun made were all Kim Jia's.
"Okay, everyone, you've all worked hard. I'll let you know the results later over the phone, so please go home."
Kang Seon-woo and Kwon Jong-hyuk didn't exclaim anything special, but they must have been surprised by Ha-eun's appearance.
Maybe they had already decided to cast Ha-eun as Kim Jia.
No, I felt like something was seriously wrong if they didn't cast Ha-eun as Kim Jia.
Min Da-yeon wasn't such a spoiled brat that she would insist on the role of Kim Jia even after seeing her succeed so cleanly in something that she wouldn't even dare to try.
Of course, she was upset.
She had been completely defeated in the area where Min Da-yeon was most confident.
It was just that the gap between Ha-eun and herself.
She vaguely guessed that it was the kind of vague gap that she couldn't catch up with even if she put in so-called bone-cutting effort.
-Thud.
In the scene where everyone in the set was slowly moving towards the exit, she walked backwards alone.
She approached Ha-eun, who was drinking a lukewarm drink that had melted in the corner of the set, and started talking to her.
It was only to satisfy Min Da-yeon's curiosity.
She was going to ask her, even briefly, what she had to do to show such strange acting in front of the camera.
However, the answer that came back from Ha-eun, whose face was slightly hardened for some reason, was just a perfunctory remark that it was better not to know.
"It's better not to know things like this."
'Just say you don't want to tell me.'
In the end, she turned her back on Ha-eun with a noticeably sulky expression.
When you think about it, what Min Da-yeon had asked Ha-eun was like a kind of trade secret, so it was understandable that she couldn't tell her...
"Hey, Min...Da-yeon."
"?"
"Good job."
No matter what, she couldn't understand why she was suddenly saying good job.
Was she teasing her?
She had acknowledged Ha-eun's skills and cleanly admitted her own defeat.
It seemed that the saying that acting skills and personality were inversely proportional was not a lie.
'I hope you step on dog poop on the way home.'
In that way, she mentally poured out all sorts of curses, not curses, at Ha-eun, whose impression had changed from an acting genius who didn't seem like a rookie to a terribly unlucky girl.
She started walking again towards the people who were waiting for Min Da-yeon in the distance.
A few days later, she contacted Kwon Jong-hyuk just in case.
[...I'm so sorry that I can't work with Da-yeon. But I'll definitely contact you if I have the chance later, so I hope you're not too disappointed.]
The news that they had finally decided to cast Ha-eun as Kim Jia, not Min Da-yeon, came from over the phone.
However, she wasn't as disappointed as she thought she would be.
She didn't expect much in the first place.
She was only slightly disappointed that she would be able to see Ha-eun on screen in about 10 years.
She wanted to book the first seat on the opening day of Next Door Neighbor and criticize Ha-eun's acting harshly, picking on every little thing, but what could she do?
'Good me is holding back, holding back...'
In that way, she tried to erase the various thoughts about Ha-eun in her head.
She began to turn the pages of the script for the movie "Neighbor," which she had been offered a role in a few days ago.
One way or another, if Ha-eun and she continued to walk the path of actors, they would be able to meet again someday.
She didn't think there was any need to be obsessed right now.
Meeting Ha-eun, who she thought she would be reunited with as a full-fledged adult actor, in the hallway of an elementary school was a story from a few years later.
She couldn't even imagine that her relationship with Ha-eun would continue to be quite tenacious even after that.
📝 Translator’s Note:
You may notice that certain lines or phrases in this novel appear both in their original Korean (or Hanja) form and in English translation.
This is intentional — these phrases are classical idioms, divine titles, or poetic expressions that carry layered meanings.
To preserve their original tone and authenticity, the raw text has been kept for reference, while the English interpretation is provided right before or after it. This helps convey both the literal and cultural nuance of the original work.
but if you guys dont want tha raw for future chapters or my future other novels u can just text me on discord and say so discord name Mr.Penny