Teen Heartthrob
Memories whirred past like film flickering through an old projector. Naturally, the prologue of my life had to start at its peak.
Back then, the entire world was obsessed with how handsome I was. I used to tell myself I was just decent-looking, but in truth, that was closer to self-hypnosis—a survival mechanism to keep my head straight in Hollywood. This place was a jungle. If you didn't want to get stabbed in the back by a knife or a pen without anyone ever finding out, you had to watch your mouth. Besides, nothing was more obnoxious than a handsome guy bragging about his own looks. It was always best to let others do the praising while you just offered a sheepish smile.
"Kyaaaah! You're so handsome! Sion! I love you!"
So, whenever a fan screamed like that on the red carpet, I would respond like this: "Haha, thank you." Back then, I still knew how to flash a smile that was a perfect blend of boyish charm and bashful modesty.
I consistently ranked in the top three of the "Hottest Teen Heartthrob of the Year" awards hosted by teen magazines like Seventeen and Young & Modern. Wherever I went, a horde of passionate, screaming teenage girls followed. In those days, I, Sion Lee, was the ultimate movie star—a true heartthrob who made teenage hearts ache.
But just as a vibrant flower hides its venom, I was slowly rotting on the inside. The projector illuminating my prologue shifted, transitioning into a slow flashback of my childhood.
My life as a child actor began at the age of eight. It wasn't easy for a child who should have been showered with parental love to navigate the adult world of professional work. Depression, anxiety, and mild panic attacks became my constant companions. While I always portrayed bright, hopeful characters on screen, my reality was the exact opposite.
Yet, I kept acting. It was driven by a desperate resolve to escape grinding poverty. My younger self whispered to me from the past: "I don't want to see Mom suffer anymore..."
I was a kid from a single-parent home in Chicago. After my Korean-American father passed away, my French-American mother and I were left all alone in the world. Watching my mother grow more exhausted by the day under the crushing weight of life, I wanted to earn money early, just like the kids I saw on television.
At first, I was just one of many guests on a children's television show. I was so nervous I couldn't utter a single word. Then, word of mouth led to my first gig as a child model. I remember feeling so embarrassed because the clothes they made me wear were so childish. After that came a few food commercials. They told me I could eat as much as I wanted, so I did—until I threw up. Then came a minor role in a local sitcom, where I got scolded for wandering around the set because everything looked so fascinating. And then...
The version of me transitioning from a boy to a young man spoke: "Hollywood, here I come."
Armed with the money and connections I had scraped together, I bought a house in Los Angeles and launched my career in earnest. Blessed with the stunning face inherited from my parents, I landed lead roles in teen movies.
"Hello there, my sunshine."
My face filled the giant silver screen as I delivered lines so cringeworthy they made me want to curl up and die today. Riding the wave of the teen movie craze that swept the industry like wildfire in the late 1980s, I seized the fame I had always craved. I starred in teen romances and road movies, navigating Hollywood like a captain chasing the stars in search of wealth and glory. I thought my meteoric rise would last forever, but...
"Sion Lee? Is there somewhere you can sit down for a moment?"
It happened inside my trailer on set. Bewildered by the sudden, solemn tone of the phone call, I found a seat.
"There's been a car accident. We ran the license plate, and it's registered to your mother."
My heart plummeted. She had been on her way back from the grocery store when a truck driver fell asleep at the wheel and slammed into her. When I went to identify the body, I wanted to die right then and there. My mother's body, which the doctors had done their best to "piece back together," was too horrific to look at.
That tragedy became the catalyst. All the stress I had bottled up in the Hollywood jungle finally exploded.
"Hey, you mother...! I told you I was taking today off! Why the hell are you showing up and bothering me!"
Drunk out of my mind, unable to even remember my schedule, I lashed out at my agent.
"What? What did you just call me? A faggot? You want to get your face caved in?"
I even got into a fistfight with a toxic fan on the red carpet. I began my slow descent. I pushed away anyone who dared to tell me the harsh truth and surrounded myself with those who whispered sweet, corrupting lies.
The brakes were finally slammed on my self-destruction when I was eighteen. Drunk as usual, I hopped on my motorcycle. I tore out of LA into the desert, and I crashed. Just like my mother.
"The scars on your face... will likely be permanent."
Those were the first words the doctor spoke to me when I finally woke up months later. Unable to accept the diagnosis, I lay blankly in my hospital bed, reading a gossip magazine article that speculated whether I had tried to commit suicide to follow my mother.
I tore off the bandages wrapped around my face like a mummy. Touching the massive scar stained with pus, blood, and antiseptic, I sobbed uncontrollably. For the next ten years, I shut myself away inside my house. What did I do? At first, I gorged on all the food I had restricted myself from eating to maintain my looks, drinking myself to sleep and ruining my body. When I grew tired of that, I started watching television.
After cycling through countless variety shows and dramas, I eventually settled on movies. I looked back at the world I had belonged to before the accident, now from the perspective of an outsider. It felt like I was slowly killing myself, and in a way, it was thrilling. Not a single piece of furniture in my house remained intact. Lacking the courage to actually slit my wrists, that was my way of self-harming.
"Merry Christmas!" from Home Alone.
"I'll be back," from Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
"Do you trust me?" from Titanic.
I laughed bitterly at the fantasy worlds unfolding inside the CRT television. Yet, when my heart ached watching them, it was the only time I felt remotely alive. Many people came to check on me out of concern, but I cursed them all out and sent them away. If only it had stopped there. One persistent visitor kept coming back until I pretended to be insane and spat on them. After that happened a few times, a neighbor took a photo of the scene and sold it to a tabloid. Once the article was published, the visits finally stopped.
Ignoring the public's mockery, I kept watching movies. I watched every single film I could get my hands on, and eventually, I even watched the ones I had starred in. Time marched on, and before I knew it, the 21st century had arrived.
"Hello there, my sunshine."
It was my signature film, shot more than a decade ago. Hearing that incredibly cheesy line, strangely enough, tears began to stream down my face. And suddenly, I wanted to act again.
Cinema had wounded me. It had exploited me until I was broken. Yet, it was also cinema that saved my shattered self. During the ten years I spent holed up in my house, movies were my only bridge to the outside world. The performances of brilliant actors and the stories they wove kept me alive. When my mother, my sole reason for living, died and left me in despair, movies held onto me. I wanted to throw myself back into that world.
After crying my eyes out, I dug through an old notebook and called my former agency's president.
"We're sorry, the number you have dialed is no longer in service..."
I then called the office of a junior agent I used to work with.
"Pardon? Oh, she's now the president..."
My former handler, who had always been incredibly sharp, was now running her own company.
"...Is this really Sion Lee? You're actually still alive?"
Dumbfounded by my call, she listened to my plea to act again and replied:
"Take a photo of yourself so I can see what you look like now, and send it over. I'll give you my fax number."
Following her instructions, I tried to go to a nearby photo studio. But it was no simple task. Ten years of isolation had broken me to the point where even stepping outside my front door felt monumental. She must have picked up on my fragile state from that single phone call. The world had raced ahead, leaving me far behind. Feeling a wave of intense self-loathing, I steeled my resolve. I had to step outside, take that photo, and face my objective reality. I needed to realize just how badly those ten wasted years had ruined me. Yet, my determination did not waver. This was the final scene of the prequel to the movie series called Sion Lee. A man, trembling with fear, stood before a closed door and made his choice. A sliver of light leaking through the crack illuminated him.
If this had been a real movie, the protagonist would have made a spectacular comeback as an actor. But reality was a bit different.
"The real story of the actor with the ruined face was plagued with difficulties right from the start."
It took me months just to step out of the house, and after taking the photo, the shock of seeing myself drove me right back into hiding. I had to look directly at a face I had barely even glanced at in a mirror. Then, rumors leaked somehow, and reporters swarmed my house, forcing me to call the police. That only fueled the fire, and soon, a tabloid ran a massive story about me, blowing things completely out of proportion. In the midst of it all, people I had never even met started contacting me, claiming they wanted to help me make a comeback in Hollywood.
"If I had worked with one of those people, I'd probably be performing in a circus sideshow by now."
The crowd erupted into laughter at my self-deprecating joke. Standing on the stage of a high school gymnasium, I was reviewing the movie of my life, Sion Lee.
"I took it slow. I went to the hospital to treat the scars on my face, and I restarted my acting training from scratch. Thanks to that, over the twenty-odd years since my return... I've appeared in various projects."
Starting with minor roles where I was just an extra getting shot to death, I gradually got lines, and recently, I even landed roles with some decent screen time. Not quite a supporting actor, but certainly better than a background extra.
"Today, I take a great deal of pride in my life. They say I'm entering the twilight of my career, but I'm still actively looking for my next project."
Though it was nothing like my teenage years, I had managed to stand before the camera once again.
"...So, to all of you."
Leaving them with a final, cliché motivational quote, I stepped down from the podium. Thunderous applause erupted from the audience. I felt my face flush.
"Great job, Mr. Lee. That was a truly wonderful lecture."
"Thank you. I had a wonderful time as well."
After exchanging brief pleasantries with the organizers, I left the venue. As I walked toward the parking lot, my pace gradually quickened. It was always like this. I was fine when I started speaking, but by the end, the embarrassment was almost unbearable. The reason was simple: my motivational speeches were built entirely on white lies.
Fucking hell. Seriously. I thought telling people what they wanted to hear was something I only did when filming romance movies.
I had never truly overcome my ruined face. Getting used to it myself was one thing, but making a comeback as an actor was an entirely different beast. While I had indeed played various roles, as I claimed in my speeches, the real reason I got cast was far more cynical.
A casting director's words from a past drinking session flashed through my mind:
"You're uselessly famous. That's exactly why studios cast you, and it's also the very reason you have a clear ceiling as an actor."
A former teen idol whose face was ruined in a car crash, holed up for ten years, only to make a dramatic return to acting. This "drama" was what kept me on the screen. In other words, the industry was far more interested in the tragic spectacle of my pathetic life than in my actual acting.
Of course they were. I understood that all too well now. Hollywood was ruthlessly capitalistic. If it made money, they would exploit it. That was the nature of America, after all. People in this town would do absolutely anything to get famous, committing acts of depravity that ordinary folks couldn't even begin to fathom. There was a famous saying in this business: *Get your name out there, no matter what. Once you do, people will pay.* Just like that saying, my life had kept drifting along.
Now, I was just an object of pity—the actor with the ruined face.
"Why do you think you got cast? It's charity work."
"Stop acting like you're some high-and-mighty artist and just do what you're told. Anyone would think you're some legendary method actor."
"What a shame. You were so beautiful when you were young, and now you're reduced to roles like this. But honestly, there's a twisted thrill in seeing you fall so low."
I hadn't become an actor again through sheer hard work. That was why my role as a motivational speaker felt so hollow. I ignored the cold, capitalistic reality of Hollywood and only highlighted the beautiful parts—how hard I had struggled and what I had achieved. Yet, the public applauded my "drama" anyway, exactly as the industry executives had predicted.
"..."
As I left the city behind and drove down the desert highway, an uncomfortable weight settled in my chest. It always happened after these gigs. I was forced to confront the issues I still hadn't resolved. But there was nothing I could do. I had to adapt to a life built on lies. At least I'm inspiring people.And besides, I don't have the confidence to survive any other way. I lied to myself just like that. Just like the entertainment industry lied to the public. Just like those who peddled dreams but treated human beings as mere commodities.
Now in my fifties, my body wasn't what it used to be. That ten-year gap of debauchery had come back to haunt me. High cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes... and the facial scars I had neglected for so long had even begun to affect my pronunciation. Honestly, the fact that I was even given the chance to act was a miracle from God. Yet, even knowing that, there were times when reality felt unbearably sorrowful.
Why did I get on that motorcycle back then? When I was a Teen Heartthrob, I truly believed I was the protagonist of the movie called the world. But it was an illusion. The moment my greatest asset—my face—was gone, I was violently thrown back into reality. That was when I realized: in Hollywood, everyone is just playing a role in a movie called reality. A movie manufactured by media moguls to deceive and control the masses. Hollywood was a set where that movie was filmed 365 days a year.
Why didn't I see this truth back then? I pondered for a moment before reaching a conclusion. It was because of the countless sycophants surrounding me. The people who acted like my best friends when I was at the top turned their backs on me the second I crashed. I didn't resent them now, but sometimes I wondered: what would my life be like if the accident had never happened? Would I have been deceived by those flatterers, spiraled into drug addiction, failed to cope with the public's expectations, and ended up ruined anyway? Or would I have been sold to some Hollywood media tycoon to become their plaything? Realizing that both scenarios were highly plausible only drove home how cruel of a town Hollywood truly was.
It can't be helped. Hollywood's primary commodity was people, and those who took on roles to be consumed by the public were often painted with sensational lies rather than the truth. I had lived my entire life that way. To say I had no regrets would be a lie. In fact, my life was now nothing but regrets. It was the only thing keeping me anchored to existence. Even now, if I had it my way, I wanted to tear apart all those who mocked me and every single one of those sycophants. But I didn't have the power to do that anymore. The face that had made me a star was shattered. Now, with no other way to survive, I was reduced to relying on pity, selling white lies like, "If a broken man like me can do it, so can you."
Drunk on the cold reality of my life, I drove blankly. This was the same desert highway where I had crashed in my youth. A road I had traveled countless times as a motivational speaker.
Honk—!
*Right, back then, it was just like this.*
Honk! Hoooonk—!
A horn blared, warning me of danger.
The moment I realized this was reality was when the high beams from the opposite lane blinded me. The massive grill of a semi-truck loomed ahead.
"...!"
I threw my hands up, instinctively shielding my face.
And then, a colossal impact swallowed the car whole.