Acting
Inside a car heading for a building in Seoul.
Seo Hyeon-woo focused on his driving, occasionally striking up conversation whenever the car stopped at a red light. Yun Hyeon-mi would pick up the thread to ease the awkward atmosphere, while I sat beside them staring at my smartphone.
Situations like this were genuinely awkward.
I disliked the creeping discomfort just as much as anyone, yet there was no way an eleven-year-old like me could take the lead and steer the conversation myself. Jumping into their back-and-forth felt strange too.
…Honestly, I just didn’t know.
My memories of being eleven were so hazy that I had no idea how kids this age were supposed to talk with adults. I’d figured I could get by with the concept of a reasonably mature little kid, but constantly adjusting my tone, behavior, and expressions every time we exchanged words was exhausting in more ways than one.
…Am I the weird one?
Surely it would be fine to just relax and live without overthinking. I could put on a bit of cuteness to win people over. Or I could stop hiding and simply show who I really was. I might get treated like a freak. Or my age-inappropriate behavior might actually earn me goodwill instead.
No one could peer into my thoughts anyway. What mattered was that I felt comfortable.
And after carefully weighing every option, the answer I finally chose was avoidance. How ridiculous.
Human relationships. Bridging the gap between people with this child’s body was, it seemed, simply too difficult for me.
Before I knew it, I had set my phone down and was gazing out the window at the ashen cityscape rolling past.
“Come on, Hyeon-woo… even so, without a single word…”
“Hyung, you know my eye for talent is better than yours.”
Seo Hyeon-woo tossed a playful reply at Kim Tae-sik, the director he had worked with for quite some time.
“Aigoo, seriously. If you’re gonna be like this, why don’t you just direct the thing yourself, huh?”
“Oh, not a bad idea. Should we switch right now?”
“Aigoo…!”
Kim Tae-sik let out a heavy sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. In truth, Seo Hyeon-woo’s judgment was so sharp that everyone in the industry acknowledged it.
“Haa… fine. Honestly, that face is so good it makes you wonder why she only showed up now. But, uh… is she okay?”
“Okay how?”
“I mean, suddenly bursting into tears or whatever… never mind. You picked her carefully, I’m sure.”
Pat, pat.
Kim Tae-sik clapped him on the shoulder and headed for the smoking room.
Recently, a child actor who had barely managed to meet Seo Hyeon-woo’s standards had given up under the weight of continuous filming, frequent mistakes, and the steadily darkening mood on set. Calling it the kid’s fault felt unfair—Seo Hyeon-woo had simply been too exacting.
…She doesn’t seem like that kind of kid at all.
While driving, Seo Hyeon-woo recalled the image of Han A-yeon, who had been pretending to look at her phone in the rearview mirror while clearly paying close attention to everything around her. Sensitive to others’ gazes as he was, he had noticed.
The way she had flatly rejected his offer to act back at the orphanage. The way she was calmly waiting in the waiting room right now, chatting with Yun Hyeon-mi. Somehow, none of the usual signs of a child tense in an unfamiliar environment were present.
Hah.
If anything, the big yawn and stretch she had just given only strengthened his conviction that it was time to really put her to the test.
“Hwaaam…”
Leaning back against Yun Hyeon-mi’s chest and stretching sent a pleasant tingle through my whole body. The comfort of entrusting yourself to someone else was the best. And the way she had somehow produced a comb and was gently running it through my hair was pure bliss as well.
…Somehow, it really felt like I had become a kid again. Like I’d been completely disarmed by a true adult’s way of handling things. In front of Yun Hyeon-mi, at least, I could be a little honest without filtering everything.
I could fall asleep right here without a single regret… but I still had something left to do.
A-yeon, would you be willing to try acting once in front of the uncles?
After Yun Hyeon-mi’s question, I had thought it over briefly and said yes. I still had no confidence in my acting. At the same time, though, I was curious. What would people think when they watched someone who clearly wasn’t an ordinary eleven-year-old kid try to act?
…And if I was being honest, there was also that quietly materialistic thought I’d been pretending not to notice—that if one movie hit big, I could earn a decent amount of money and ease some of my worries about the future.
In that sense, I was nothing but grateful to Yun Hyeon-mi for following me all the way here and taking such devoted care of me even though she had nothing to gain. If I ever made it big, I would have to come back and treat her to a really expensive meal.
I thought that while watching Seo Hyeon-woo, who stood a short distance away and gave me a gentle smile the moment our eyes met.
Gaze, breathing, immersion, analysis, and so on. If I started listing everything important in acting, the list would never end.
“F-first time? …You’re saying this is the first time you’ve ever acted?”
“Yes.”
Director Kim Tae-sik—whose forehead already looked like it was flirting with baldness—covered his face with both hands and performed a dry wash, trying to hide his expression. He was probably thinking that even school-play level would be a relief… and he was right.
Acting? What even was that.
All that existed here was one abnormally mature kid who was simply more grown-up than her peers.
…No, a guy with zero real friends calling himself mature was pretty weird too. Let’s just settle for “abnormal kid.”
Clack.
Along with procedures that had probably been simplified for my sake, a young woman entered exactly as I had been told she would.
…I can do this, right?
If I failed, it would just be a shame. All I could do was immerse myself in the present situation. And fortunately, this body possessed an absurdly good ability to concentrate.
A single-room apartment.
Hearing those words, some people would recall the nostalgia of their youth, others the bitterness of a hard past, and still others the very symbol of poverty.
And here…
“….”
A young girl sat staring endlessly at an empty plate on a worn table. At first glance she gave off a cold air, yet her beauty brightened the atmosphere by a full degree.
“Ye-rim?”
That is, until her parents came home.
“…I hate it.”
The quiet single room began to freeze at the girl’s firm cry.
“H-hate what…?”
“……I’m sick of it.”
Slowly, the girl rose from her seat and lifted her head.
“How long are we going to live like this?”
“Just a little longer… just a little bit more and I’m sure…”
“That damn ‘just a little longer’!”
The atmosphere turned urgent.
“Do you love gambling that much? Enough to sell your own daughter, take handouts from everyone around you, and pour it all back into gambling?”
“That’s…”
Overwhelmed by the girl’s fiercely raised voice, the woman could no longer open her mouth and simply held her silence. Her trembling eyes proved just how shocked she was.
“…Hah.”
The girl looked as if she had much more to say, yet she only parted her tightly pressed lips and let out a short sigh. Until the very moment she calmly walked out of the single room steeped in cold silence, the woman did nothing but stare endlessly at the floor.
…Clap.
It began with one PD’s instinctive gesture.
What did I just watch?
Then, amid the thunderous applause that poured down, Seo Hyeon-woo fixed his gaze on Han A-yeon, who was awkwardly rubbing the back of her neck.
She had said it was her first time acting. At only eleven years old, that was almost certainly true.
“…What the hell is that kid? Did you really bring her from an orphanage? We could use that scene as-is…”
Kim Tae-sik’s muttered question beside him was completely understandable. They had only pulled a very short portion of the actual script for the test, and she had delivered a solid performance right in front of them.
Any no-name actor could probably have managed something similar if asked to do the same. The point was her age. How many people in the world could pull off acting like that at such a young age? Add the condition that she also had to be pretty, and the pool shrank to almost nothing.
Even Yun Hyeon-mi, who had known Han A-yeon longer than anyone else present, wore a look of pure surprise.
Seo Hyeon-woo clenched his fist tightly to keep the rising excitement in check.
“What did I tell you?”
Honestly, he hadn’t expected anything this big. He had only intended a simple test. He hadn’t even told her what role she was playing or what the situation was. He had simply told her to act however she wanted.
Looking at Director Kim Tae-sik, whose mouth was curling upward just like his own, Seo Hyeon-woo thought:
…Don’t tell me she read the movie’s plot on her phone beforehand?
Leaking brief plot summaries through tabloids or intentional information drops to plant a film in the public’s mind was common practice in the industry. They had done something similar with Until Out, deliberately seeding a rough synopsis through the media. Han A-yeon must have looked it up.
Gathering information in advance to understand and respond to the situation she was in—that matched the character of Lee Ye-rim, a girl who had weathered the world’s storms alone at a young age and was surviving by herself.
Even if she had simply improvised appropriately for the moment, that would have been fine too. It would still mean her talent was exceptional.
“Haha! You said you didn’t want to earlier, but A-yeon, your acting is really good!”
Whatever the case, Seo Hyeon-woo had completely fallen for the acting of this awkwardly standing little girl.