A True Genius Is Different From the Very Start (5)

To anyone reading the script of The Spy and I for the first time, Muyoung was nothing more than an ordinary bit player secretly in love with the female lead, Lee Hye-in — a pure woman who lived always smiling in a world he could never hope to enter, one he had gazed up at since his earliest days. And so Muyoung yearned for Hye-in's world, finding in her a strange emotion he had never once felt in his life.

But the emotion Han Seol had just shown was not love. It was not curiosity, nor tender affection.

Fury.

The emotion Han Seol had directed at Lee Hye-in was none other than rage.

...What is this? Didn't he just say, with his own mouth, that this was his first time acting? What was that look in his eyes...?

The young man called Han Seol — the one who had flashed that good-natured smile and claimed he'd never acted before — was nowhere to be found. There was only Muyoung, wounded, staring at Lee Hye-in with hollow eyes.

But no one could make sense of it. Why on earth would Muyoung, who was supposed to love Hye-in, be angry at her? They had all read the script of The Spy and I and gone over Muyoung's character profile.

As a child, Muyoung had been abandoned by his parents. The script never spelled out why — Muyoung was, after all, a bit part who barely brushed past the story, and no one grants that kind of weighty backstory to a bit part.

But to Han Seol, those few short lines of Muyoung's history did not read lightly at all.

The boy had grown up in an orphanage. He would have made friends among children his own age, fought with them, lived out an ordinary childhood. Then one day came word of an adoption. But adoption, as a process, was never that simple.

From the very first counseling session, checks were run: whether the prospective parents had the means to raise a child, whether they were approaching with any crooked intent. Even after the paperwork was filed, the facility would visit the adoptive parents' home, and the process crawled through one complicated stage after another, all the way through thorough post-adoption follow-ups. That was what a normal adoption looked like.

Which was why not the faintest thought crossed my mind that young ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Muyoung's adoption had gone through any ordinary procedure. For instance—

an accident...

Wouldn't the most reasonable explanation be that some enormous incident — one large enough to bulldoze straight past every standard safeguard — had struck the orphanage?

One day a fire breaks out at the orphanage, and overnight every child loses the only ground they have ever stood on. The director no longer has the means to look after them; however fierce her resolve to take in children who had lost their parents, she herself has lost far too much to manage it. And so the children are scattered to the four winds.

No — "scattered against their will" might be the more fitting way to put it. Some are transferred to other orphanages; others, their plight pitied by someone who took it to heart, are swept up into hasty adoptions. And Muyoung — a blessing wrapped inside misfortune — becomes one of the children taken in by a stranger's hand.

"You've got good eyes. What's your name?"

The man who adopted Muyoung that day was, in all likelihood... no ordinary person. On the surface, his company did the ordinary business of private security services. Behind that face, it was an illegal operation that collected young children, raised them as mercenaries, and made its money trading in human lives.

Under any normal circumstance Muyoung would never have been adopted at all — but with so many unusual circumstances stacking one atop another, his adoption went through just like that.

As for everything after that...

There, Muyoung learned to fight while biting down on the pain. He learned to subdue grown men, to handle weapons — even, in the end, how to kill with them.

"Mister... I want to quit now..."

"How... how long are we supposed to live like this...?"

"It hurts too much... please, make it stop..."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

He could not have been the only child there. Children who should have been holding pens were gripping knives. At ages made for kicking a ball around, they kicked each other instead; at ages made for a parent's love, their emotions were carved out of them.

And... absurdly, cruelly, Muyoung had talent. Abandoned by his parents, he was already missing much of what makes a person feel; dismissed as an orphanage brat, he had already forged the "venom" no child his age should ever carry. And so Muyoung grew faster than anyone.

"You are a monster. Do not think of yourself as human. You are an all-weather, jack-of-all-trades monster that can survive in any environment. That is what you are."

Muyoung's instructor trained him with an iron hand. He had recognized the boy's gift and passed on everything he knew, and as the years went by, Muyoung began taking on the special commissions no other mercenary was ever given.

And then, one day—

a commission of a kind Muyoung had never experienced came across his desk.

"Muyoung. We have a job."

The job was a protection detail.

"For the next five years, you will guard the youngest daughter of the conglomerate Shinseong. But you are never to show yourself before the client. Understood?"

Muyoung did not ask why. What he was permitted was not 'judgment' but 'execution.' All he had to do was carry out the commission laid before him, to the very end.

It can't have been hard, at first.

Reading through the client's file, Muyoung learned that she had been born the same year as he had. But beyond that, the world she lived in and the world he had survived were divided by so sharp a line that no other common ground could be found. Two people born the same year, living utterly different hours inside the very same day.

"Boring."

At first it was nothing but tedium. Nearly every job he had taken before had been a rush of adrenaline and danger, which made this one feel all the more so.

But slowly. Very slowly, Muyoung began to soak into Lee Hye-in's life.

"This is..."

There were no battles drenched in blood and gore. Only peaceful days stretching on, quietly walking in step with her time. One year, two years... on and on, until the fifth and final year of the commission drew near.

Under orders never to reveal himself, he left the small incidents for her to resolve on her own — unless a true crisis ever fell upon her.

And then, one day, a single realization visited Muyoung.

"So this is what ordinary means?"

The 'everyday life' he had never had, she had in abundance. To be fair, the life of a chairman's youngest daughter at Korea's largest conglomerate could hardly be called ordinary — but to Muyoung, for whom every day had been a battlefield, all of it arrived as something brand-new.

And so Muyoung came to possess something called emotion. When she laughed, a smile rose to his face before he knew it; when she was in pain, he ached alongside her.

Muyoung began to feel that he was turning ordinary. It felt as though the Muyoung of his childhood had walked up to him, seized him by the collar, and demanded that he stop hiding his feelings.

"I never thought I'd end up grateful to a client."

And so the five years of the commission ran their course. On that final day, Muyoung was suddenly struck by a greedy little wish: to see Lee Hye-in's face with his own eyes. For the first time since taking the job — and for the last — he wanted to look at her face and exchange a greeting.

But Muyoung turned away. To Lee Hye-in, Muyoung was no different ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠from a weed growing in the flowerbed at the corner of a crosswalk — something that undoubtedly existed, yet had no color, something no one ever noticed. And if such a thing dared to show itself, it would simply be plucked up by the roots, for no other reason than that it was a weed.

But then—

KA-BAANG—!

From somewhere not far away rolled a thunderous roar that shook the very earth. The sound came from the hill at the far end of the alley, and its source was a truck whose tire had burst in the sweltering summer heat — now hurtling straight toward the crosswalk.

This was dangerous. Lee Hye-in, after ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠all, already carried the trauma of terrorist threats as a chairman's daughter. Her legs had given out beneath her; sprawled on the ground, her face drained white, she stared at the truck charging straight at her.

He wanted to save her. But the five years of the commission were already spent, and the terms — never to appear before her — were still in force.

But.

"Help me..."

In that instant, Muyoung realized that at some point she had been looking at him. Eyes brimming with tears she had not shed in five years, she turned her head toward him.

HOOOONK—!

Muyoung's legs moved. It was no calculated act but an instinctive motion spilling out of the unconscious. Since when had she known he was there? Why, knowing it, had she never once let it show? A storm of questions whipped through his head in an instant — but the one thought ruling Muyoung's mind now was a single, absolute fact: he had to save Lee Hye-in.

'Can she even be saved?'

It didn't matter.

'Am I allowed to show myself to her?'

The same answer to that, too.

Muyoung's body closed the distance to Lee Hye-in, and hurling himself forward without a thought for his own flesh, he tore her free of the truck's path.

And Muyoung looked at her. Her eyes said she had known all along that he would come. And she asked.

"You..."

It was none of the thanks one would normally expect in return. Nor was it a question about who he was. What spilled from her lips was, if anything, a question that could only belong to someone who already knew exactly what he was.

"What's your name?"

Muyoung was angry. Why had she known all along that he was there, yet never breathed a word of it? Why, of all things, did she have to teach him what emotion was — and make a misery of his past? If she had caught on to him sooner, he would never have lingered by her side. He would have lived on without ever knowing the word 'ordinary,' and he would never have known the sorrow swallowing him now.

And so, for the first time in his life, he opened his mouth carrying a true and heartfelt emotion. In that trembling voice lived dozens of feelings at once — gratitude, anguish, fury, sorrow, joy. The first emotion ever to pour out of the colorless Muyoung.

.
.
.

And that one fleeting instant of feeling, heavy with every shade of love and regret — it was the first line ever spoken by one actor in an audition room. The first line of Han Seol.

"......"

"......"

The crew of The Spy and I, left standing where Han Seol had been, said nothing for a long while. The set felt as though a storm had just swept through. No actual disaster had struck, of course — but it was no lie that something beyond nature had just occurred. Han Seol's performance was branded into their minds and refused to leave.

Could an actor who had claimed this was his first time really perform with such overwhelming emotion? Method acting, fine — but that was still a person playing a person. What, in heaven's name, were they supposed to call it when the genuine article stepped onto the stage?

"So this is... a pass, right?"

"Is that even a question? Of course it is."

"B-but is Muyoung really supposed to get angry there...? Damn it, who else could possibly play him? At this point the man basically is Muyoung."

Everyone who had watched Han Seol's performance spoke with one heart and one voice. Even Yoon Gwang-shik, who had strained from the start to poke every hole he could, was no exception.

But while the rest of them debated Han Seol's performance, Writer Ryu Soo-min stood off in a corner, staring blankly into the air, murmuring something nobody could make out.

"A bit part... a bit part? Someone who can act like that — impossibly — is a bit part?"

Writer Ryu Soo-min turned and seized the shoulder of PD Min Byung-dae beside her, who was staring at the ceiling with the soul drained clean out of his eyes.

"PD, I'm a brand-new writer, so maybe I haven't seen enough real acting to judge — but do bit players normally act like that?"

"......"

PD Min Byung-dae turned his head. He kept his mouth shut for a long, long moment. But then, at last, his lips parted.

"......Ueeeeh?"

"Now I understand completely."

And with that, Writer Ryu Soo-min made a solemn resolution: she was going to expand Muyoung's part — properly, and in earnest.