Chapter 82
Chapter 82
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 82
Chapter Title: True Colors
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All characters have their own color orbs.
Then what about real people in reality? Do they have their own color orbs too?
Seonwoo naturally thought they did.
After all, color ultimately represents the heart.
Everyone must have their own color orb.
Seonwoo had long been curious about his.
What color did his heart shine?
Seonwoo had hoped for pastel tones.
Soft yellow, light green, sky blue... something calm and pretty like that would be nice.
Of course, it was just wishful thinking.
Even he knew he wasn't the type for such vibrant hues.
Realistically, the best he could hope for was a vivid blue or a cool silver laced with rainbows.
Yeah.
But he never imagined it would be this dull, menacing shade.
'This is my color?'
Seonwoo stared blankly at his body for a long while.
Gray mist enveloped him tightly, and crimson bursts pierced through it now and then, rising like lava.
It felt like he'd become a bubbling, boiling lava man.
Seonwoo couldn't understand it.
Ever since he started acting... surely he'd become more colorful.
That's what he'd thought.
So why did his inner image still hold this color?
'Does Writer Ryu... know the answer?'
Probably.
She wrote this script, after all. If he met her, he could ask... Seonwoo chuckled wryly at the thought.
To think he'd one day want to meet that chilling woman.
Seonwoo sighed.
"Nothing to be done about it."
He had to accept it first.
That he was a person with this kind of palette, no matter what.
In the old days, this might have shocked him a bit.
Not that long ago, even during the early shoots of One Room, if he'd seen his color orb like this... he'd have been pretty downcast.
But now, it was shocking, sure, but not disheartening.
And why was that?
—People shine in their own way... from their own places.
He'd learned that dullness didn't mean no shine.
Seonwoo had spoken so confidently to the judges. He couldn't mope now just because his color matched Kim Seonwoo's.
Still, he wondered why his inner image was like this... but that could wait.
For now, he needed to analyze how this changed color affected his acting.
'Kim Seonwoo is already hooked on this game.'
He could feel it.
Kim Seonwoo was completely captivated by One Room.
Just like Seonwoo when he first encountered acting.
In a way, it was the same. Only the object of affection differed; Seonwoo and Kim Seonwoo weren't so different.
Seonwoo felt alive through acting, Kim Seonwoo through One Room.
Anyway, with such a familiar emotional line, expressing it didn't feel too hard.
The real problem came from an unexpected place.
It was that afternoon.
"Y-you're the one, right?"
He sensed the anomaly right after filming began.
Precisely, after starting to match timing with the others.
"...What?"
"You kept saying we should expose him. It didn't go your way, so you killed him! Right?"
'...The colors.'
For a brief moment, Seonwoo's immersion wavered.
He couldn't help it. When the colors emanating from the others' acting reached him... their emotions flooded in like the tide.
'What is this?'
He'd had a similar experience before.
The first time acting with Doyoung, Seonwoo had been overwhelmed by his emotions, breaking immersion.
But this was different.
Their emotions weren't as overpowering as Doyoung's... and Seonwoo's acting wasn't lacking.
So why...
'...Is it because I have room to spare now?'
That was the sudden answer.
Kim Seonwoo's emotions were so familiar to him now that he even had the leeway to feel others'.
Not a great sign.
If he wasn't careful, he might not focus enough on Kim Seonwoo's emotions.
Especially in this scene, the risk stood out.
"You never know. It could have been me who killed him."
The scene where Lee Yeonwoo and Kim Seonwoo subtly probed each other.
"...Hmm, somehow I doubt it."
"Why?"
"Just a feeling. Doesn't seem like you."
Every time Lee Yeonwoo's lips parted, her clear sky-blue voice washed over him, carrying her subtly chilling emotions. Incredibly human yet inorganic, her twisted heart came through.
Dangerous.
His immersion wasn't just shaking; it felt like his inner image was dyeing to her color...
"——Cut!"
Park Myungjin's cut saved Seonwoo.
Seonwoo let out a sigh of relief.
Maintaining immersion had been overwhelming.
It must have been terrible acting.
And then,
"Seonwoo."
"Yes."
"Your emotional line is so unique?"
As expected, Park Myungjin immediately pointed out the change once the take ended.
Seonwoo bowed his head sheepishly.
"Sorry. Trying to show Kim Seonwoo's change, I fell short."
"Hmm...?"
Park Myungjin tilted her head.
Watching her, Seonwoo's heart sank again.
What now? What else was wrong? As that thought crossed his mind,
"Why apologize? I thought that take was great."
Words he hadn't expected tumbled from Park Myungjin's mouth.
Seonwoo stared at her blankly.
"Great... you say?"
...Why?
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ That day, Seonwoo spent the entire shoot adapting to this unforeseen change.
Every time he acted with someone, he got caught up in each color they emitted. Swept away by their emotions.
But the most baffling part was Park Myungjin's reaction to every scene:
"Good. Let's keep going like that."
Clearly far more unstable than before, open to criticism for lacking immersion, yet she approved.
And that gave Seonwoo a new perspective.
'...Maybe my immersion isn't breaking?'
Thinking back, at some point he'd decided he shouldn't be affected by others' acting.
No special reason.
Immersion is fundamentally just on your own character.
You interact with others, sure, but getting swayed by their emotions leads to character collapse.
That's what he'd thought.
'But Kim Seonwoo is a character hypersensitive to others from the start.'
Kim Seonwoo was empty inside.
And in that emptiness, he peered into others' hearts to fill his own.
So reacting sharply to others' emotions like this... might be the most Kim Seonwoo thing possible.
'...Am I like this in reality too?'
The question flickered, but Seonwoo didn't dwell.
No time for self-exploration now. He needed a clear answer on how to act.
Park Myungjin was praising it, but getting points for acting he wasn't convinced of was meaningless.
Praise should come for the acting he intended.
Otherwise, it'd just be luck.
Seonwoo decided to shift his mindset.
If reacting to others' emotions didn't collapse the character... wouldn't embracing them be better than guarding against them?
So when they resumed filming,
"You okay?"
"Ah... yeah. Actually, that's what I should be asking you. Your cheek's really swollen."
"Eh, it's fine. In this mess, a swollen cheek is nothing. You seemed out of it all morning, though. Were you close with... Park Moonhyeon?"
Seonwoo began to fully feel Lee Yeonwoo's sky-blue voice touching his skin.
Chilling. Soft yet firm texture. It evoked the scent of summer sea for some reason.
Her essence was in there.
Maybe Yeonwoo's essence.
Intuition spoke before thought.
Lee Yeonwoo must have worked tirelessly to produce that voice.
Practiced that smile in the mirror thousands of times, so no one would ignore or hate her.
And beyond that effort dwelled... her burning desire to live, so vividly felt that,
"Close? We just... talked some."
Seonwoo smiled.
The script described it as Kim Seonwoo smiling bitterly here.
Seonwoo had thought it was grief for the dead Park Moonhyeon. But now, maybe not.
'Kim Seonwoo might have seen through Lee Yeonwoo's facade.'
Not piercing her serial killer secret, probably.
Just intuited she wasn't as flawless as she seemed.
Realizing that made the acting click more.
"...But it's weird."
"What?"
"For someone going through hell, your face looks good."
"My face...?"
"Yeah. Just looking at you, it's like you slept great. Oh, is that rude?"
"You're the weird one."
A novel sensation. Before, it felt like just reciting lines... now, they bubbled up from the heart.
Like these were the only words possible right now.
"Me?"
"Yeah. Holding strong in this... everyone's pretending, but wary of each other. Aren't you scared of me? You never know. It could have been me who killed him."
"...Hmm, somehow I doubt it."
"Why?"
"Just a feeling. Doesn't seem like you."
Colors layered over colors.
Subtle currents from entwined emotions.
The picture they painted felt far clearer than before.
And in that process, Seonwoo quietly realized.
Acting was ultimately like brushstrokes.
Different results from how much color and pressure you apply.
Now he saw how crude his old acting was.
Just a dab of paint on canvas, bragging about the pretty color.
'...Have I finally taken the first step?'
As a painter, he'd just learned to mix paints.
Just starting to hold the brush, Seonwoo decided.
And it seemed he wasn't alone in that thought.
"——Bravo! Great! Perfect!"
When the take ended, Park Myungjin was beaming.