Misunderstanding, Madness, Obsession
The stage was still bare, props not yet properly arranged. I stopped at its center and spoke.
“This is your problem, Lee Se-rin.”
“What?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. You’re too conscious of the stage. The audience, the lights, the evaluation—you pay attention to all of it.”
I had noticed it every time she acted on stage: the way she habitually glanced toward the seats, as if checking for the gaze of invisible spectators.
“I have to be perfect. It would be strange not to care.”
“Well, that’s true.”
For a technique-oriented actor, it wasn’t exactly wrong. But—
Lee Se-rin is an immersion-type actor.
For someone like her to deliberately focus on things outside the scene was a bad sign.
“That’s exactly the problem. You want to break free, so you focus even harder, but the more you do, the worse the symptoms get, right?”
Lee Se-rin turned her head, as if reluctantly admitting it.
“There’s no way around it.”
No way around it. The corner of my mouth lifted.
“If there was no way, I wouldn’t have called you here.”
With those words, I dragged over a box full of props from one side of the stage.
“What is that… props?”
“Just wait.”
I had received damaged or unusable props from the prop team, along with rehearsal props the youngest staff member had made for practice. Of course, I had gotten proper permission. The prop team leader had laughed and said I could use them freely as long as I returned them properly.
Guess helping the prop team paid off.
I began placing the props around the stage exactly as I had planned in advance.
“What are you doing? Why are you setting up props?”
Lee Se-rin looked puzzled.
“You focus because you need to be perfect, and the more you focus, the more trapped you feel. So let’s go the opposite direction.”
“Opposite?”
“Let’s try complete immersion.”
It was something the Psychiatric Actor from the gallery had told me.
"After an accident, there was an actor who suffered from severe camera phobia due to PTSD."
"The director, whose film was on the verge of falling apart, forced the actor to eat, sleep, and live on set for the entire shooting period. As a result, the role became the actor, the set became the actor's reality, and the phobia was overcome."
⟨ Extreme Method Immersion ⟩
The Psychiatric Actor had also added that even in less extreme cases, some method actors stayed overnight on set to achieve deeper immersion.
And the effect of that—I was feeling it most clearly through my Director’s Vision.
That actor had spent more than thirteen of the remaining fifteen weeks of filming on set. There were later stories that he lost over ten kilograms because of it.
There are also plenty of stories about actors who went completely insane after pushing method acting too far.
Just three days. There shouldn’t be any problems.
I smiled at Lee Se-rin.
“We’re staying here for three days. No phones, no contact with the outside world. Except for sleeping, focus only on the script and the role. Until this stage becomes reality.”
“What? Then you and I… together…”
To the flustered Lee Se-rin, I handed over Ha-rang’s letter.
“I’m not Kim Doyun. I’m Sang-cheol. This isn’t a set—it’s reality. And from now on, you are Ha-rang.”
On the first day, an awkward atmosphere lingered around Lee Se-rin. She looked utterly bewildered.
“Ha-rang, are you feeling okay?”
Even when reading the script or discussing scenes, he addressed her as Ha-rang instead of Lee Se-rin.
If she showed even the slightest sign of being conscious of the stage, he would deliberately guide her to immerse herself in the scene.
What kind of nonsense is this?
Still, it was true that she had received help from Kim Doyun. If the price was just giving up a few days of vacation to practice acting, it wasn’t too expensive. Besides, there was that faint maybe.
On the second day, Lee Se-rin realized something was off.
Kim Doyun…
She had always hated the words genius, prodigy, child actor. People simply labeled the fact that a child actor could perform well as “talent.” It made all her own fierce training feel meaningless.
Even now, after graduating high school, she was still an actor who drew attention for her talent. That was Lee Se-rin.
What the hell is he?
Kim Doyun. His detailed technique was hard to believe for a rookie. He wasn’t flashy, but he had an inexplicable emotion in his acting, as if he were truly seeing something. Even so, she had thought she could catch up to him.
With her innate talent and training volume, Kim Doyun could never reach her level. That was what Lee Se-rin had believed.
She had never imagined she might have been wearing the same colored glasses as everyone else.
“Haa… haa… When… are we resting?”
“Aren’t we resting right now?”
He looked at the script with a face that genuinely didn’t understand. Lee Se-rin had always prided herself on being an extreme training addict.
But that’s different.
What Kim Doyun was doing wasn’t practice. Even in normal practice, people unconsciously gravitate toward what they’re good at or confident in.
But Kim Doyun was different. His training was so intense it could only be called bizarre. Most actors try to highlight their strengths and hide their weaknesses.
What on earth…
Kim Doyun instead obsessively dug into the most painful and deficient parts of himself.
He would roll around on the stage floor trying to reach the miserable emotions in the script, or eat cold lunchboxes with his bare hands.
And then—
“Shall we start again?”
Kim Doyun, who had gone to the bathroom saying he couldn’t quite capture the sorrowful emotion, returned with a wet face as if he had washed it and spoke to her. His cheek was swollen enough that even Lee Se-rin could tell he had slapped himself.
This is ridiculous.
Brutal effort and immersion bordering on self-abuse. That was what Kim Doyun called practice.
Yet the most terrifying thing was—
Why is he smiling?
The fact that he was enjoying it.
The one who pretended to be the most normal was actually the craziest. That was the man named Kim Doyun in Lee Se-rin’s eyes.
So this is it.
During the audition and every rehearsal, she had felt an eerie sensation, as if Kim Doyun were looking at a completely different landscape.
It hadn’t been her imagination.
Kim Doyun really was seeing a different world. An overwhelming amount of training. That was how he saw the world inside the script.
That was the conclusion Lee Se-rin reached after watching his practice and rehearsal.
A feeling as if she herself were becoming insignificant—something she had never felt before.
At the same time, there was another sensation that rose even stronger. Had she been influenced by Kim Doyun? The obsession with perfect acting was fading, and she felt herself becoming part of the stage.
And that feeling wasn’t bad at all.
Dawn of the third day.
I feel like I’m going to die.
Except for bathroom breaks, she had not stepped down from the stage even once. Even in her moments of rest, she never let go of the script. Every moment, every second, she acted as someone other than herself.
And at some point, Lee Se-rin had become Ha-rang.
As expected, he’s incredible.
She had thought it would be possible for Lee Se-rin. After all, she was a great actress capable of drawing out perfect immersion.
Is this the climax?
Lee Se-rin—no, Ha-rang—collapsed and sobbed.
The scene of dying alone, submerged in sorrow. Act 3, Ha-rang’s death.
It should be about time now.
Very slowly, I reached for the lighting switch. The light where Lee Se-rin had collapsed.
—Flash!
A powerful beam of light illuminated the stage.
Lee Se-rin didn’t move a muscle. She simply continued the performance.
“Perfect.”
The three days of hellish practice with Lee Se-rin had ended. Today’s rehearsal had reached the end of Act 3—Ha-rang’s final scene.
Since it was an important scene, every eye and every light was being checked together.
Why am I the one feeling nervous?
I was swallowing my tension when Writer Yun Song-i approached.
“Doyun! I heard you did intense training with Actor Lee Se-rin?”
“The rumor already reached that far?”
“Of course. I was shocked when I heard it from the director. In all my years working, this is the first time I’ve seen an actor who actually wants to come to the set and perform on it on purpose.”
For some reason, she smiled brightly, looking genuinely happy.
“I just have to work harder to make up for what I lack.”
“I really like how humble you are, too.”
For some reason, the writer is really nice to me.
As I smiled at the thought, Writer Yun Song-i suddenly seemed to remember something and asked.
“By the way, how did you manage to get that kind of opportunity from Actor Lee Se-rin? She doesn’t even meet with staff, let alone other actors.”
“Haha. She’s actually a better person than you think. She treats even a nobody like me well.”
“Really? I’ve tried to talk to her before but she always avoided me, so I didn’t know much about her.”
“She’s just shy.”
At my words, Writer Yun Song-i let out a small laugh.
“Why are you laughing?”
“It just looks good. I’ve seen her a few times on set, and she always seemed distant. I was worried about her.”
Well, it was hard to imagine Lee Se-rin approaching others first and acting friendly.
“So maybe that’s why. Seeing her getting along with you looks really nice.”
Writer Yun Song-i. She really is a good person.
Completely different from Director Lee Tae-ryun!
Admiring her character, I nodded.
“There’s a lot I can learn from her.”
While I was chatting with Writer Yun Song-i, Director Lee Tae-ryun had somehow already taken a seat in front of the stage.
“It must be the opposite.”
“Pardon?”
“This is the first time I’ve seen Se-rin shaken. And the moment her acting wavers, you start something like practice? A kid who never did that before?”
“Director, you suddenly appear and say things like this…”
“You blew unnecessary wind into Se-rin’s ears, didn’t you? That child only produces good acting when she’s obsessed with perfection. Did you think I’d just sit still because I didn’t know?”
At his words, Kim Doyun smiled with an awkward face.
“Haha… I just thought I might be able to help Actor Lee Se-rin a little, so I gave some advice. I have absolutely no complaints about the director’s directing! None at all!”
Kim Doyun bowed his head. Lee Tae-ryun knew. Right now, Kim Doyun understood exactly what his question meant.
“You wanted to help? Don’t pretend to be a good person.”
“No, Director, what are you suddenly saying? Why are you like this today…”
At the flustered words of Writer Yun Song-i beside him, Lee Tae-ryun let out a sigh.
“Never mind. I must be a little tired. Kim Doyun.”
“Not at all! Even if it wasn’t intentional, I’m sorry for interfering with the director’s direction.”
Lee Tae-ryun gestured at Kim Doyun.
“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it and go do your work.”
As Kim Doyun walked away, Writer Yun Song-i looked at Director Lee Tae-ryun.
“Director, why do you always look like you want to devour Actor Kim Doyun whenever you see him?”
Director Lee Tae-ryun let out another sigh.
“Yeah, I wonder.”
The eyes of actors with brilliance always sparkled. It wasn’t a metaphor—Lee Tae-ryun could actually see it. That was why Kim Doyun’s acting lingering in his head felt so unpleasant.
But this time, it wasn’t just because of that.
On the day Lee Se-rin collapsed on stage, Director Lee Tae-ryun had clearly seen Kim Doyun’s eyes.
Hah. A desire to help?
Director Lee Tae-ryun rubbed his temple.
Don’t make me laugh. That wasn’t worry or any shallow emotion like that.
When Lee Se-rin collapsed that day, while everyone else was panicking and rushing around, only Kim Doyun had been staring fixedly at her.
“Hoo…”
The eyes of Kim Doyun that he had seen that day.
A murky black he had never seen before.
It wasn’t something like talent.
It was pure obsession with acting.
An instinctive displeasure toward any flaw in the performance he was trying to perfect. A mad impulse to tear it apart and force it back into place no matter what.
Lee Tae-ryun himself had once thought such an attitude wasn’t bad. But clumsy madness is always exposed when it meets the real thing.
At that moment, Writer Yun Song-i, watching Lee Se-rin step onto the stage, spoke.
“This is Actor Lee Se-rin’s first rehearsal since she collapsed last time. I’m a little worried. I hope she managed her condition well.”
Ignoring the inexplicable frustration, Director Lee Tae-ryun answered shortly.
“We’ll find out once we see this rehearsal.”