You're So Bright It's Driving Me Insane
Lee Tae-ryun squeezed his eyes shut. The arrogance of having trusted his own vision too much. The result of the pride that had driven that arrogance all the way to the end was a shattered Lee Se-rin.
Damn it….
He had been wrong.
Lee Tae-ryun had believed in his eyes for decades. He had never doubted that those eyes would one day create Korea’s first ten-million-viewer film.
But.
Choosing Kim Doyun now was no different from a man who had walked his entire life trusting a single compass finally admitting that the compass might be broken.
And having finally admitted it, Lee Tae-ryun shouted.
“From now on, we adjust everything to Kim Doyun.”
Lee Tae-ryun grabbed his radio.
“Kim Doyun. Listen carefully. I’ll lay down the lighting and music atmosphere, so you handle the timing.”
The lighting director asked, startled by Director Lee Tae-ryun’s words.
“What? At this point?! But the sequence…”
Director Lee Tae-ryun shouted again.
“From now on, I’m calling every single cue.”
Kim Doyun answered.
“Understood.”
For Lee Tae-ryun, this was an insane gamble. He was a man who had always competed through the brilliance of talent within perfectly calculated direction.
“Hoo…”
It was the moment Kim Doyun’s foot touched the stage. Lee Tae-ryun shouted into his radio.
“Stage. Change the lighting cue. Drop Kim Chan-uk’s light, bring Lee Se-rin’s up, two-second fade. Pass the spot to Kim Doyun.”
“Yes!”
“The moment Kim Doyun stops is the cue. Take one beat before you come in!”
Lee Tae-ryun kept shouting as he glanced between the stage and the monitor.
“Camera Two. Catch Lee Se-rin from behind Kim Doyun. Hold position. The rest… I’m counting on you, Director Yoon.”
“Never a dull moment working with Director Lee. Don’t worry.”
“Sound, kill the background track. Keep the mics live.”
Writer Yun Song-i’s eyes widened at the sight of Director Lee Tae-ryun.
“Director, are you improvising right now…?”
Lee Tae-ryun didn’t answer. He continued directing without once taking his eyes off the monitor.
“Kim Doyun. Top light. You have three seconds. Match the timing.”
“Yes.”
“Camera Three. Grab the audience seats for five seconds. Kim Doyun’s entrance must not look awkward.”
“Spot up.”
The lights shifted.
“Hold Camera Two. Stay exactly like that…”
A brief silence.
“Go, Kim Doyun.”
The direction had suddenly changed because of my abrupt entrance. That wasn’t something for me to worry about.
It’s Director Lee Tae-ryun’s responsibility now.
If Lee Se-rin could return to playing Ha-rang in Flowers Fall and deliver that performance.
“Huu.”
With every step closer to the stage, the scenery around me transformed.
I could see it.
What lay before me was the corridor outside Ha-rang’s hospital room. True to the bleak story, the atmosphere was heavy and dark.
Through the crack in the hospital room door came Lee Se-rin’s voice as she struggled to deliver her lines. Her face looked like she might collapse at any second.
“D-don’t… go. Min-woo…. I’m scared….”
Her tone trembled. At this point it could still read as Ha-rang’s psychological state. It wasn’t too late.
Even though Ha-rang’s voice must have been clearly audible, Min-woo stood with his back to the hospital room door.
He must have heard her. He must have!
That was when I stepped onto the stage and murmurs rose from the audience seats.
“What’s that?” “Isn’t that Sang-cheol?” “Was he supposed to appear now?”
Kim Chan-uk was staring at me in shock as well.
Why the hell are you here?
That was the look on his face. He must have heard the radio, but it was still disorienting.
Even so, I had to keep acting.
As Sang-cheol, I asked Min-woo, who was leaving Ha-rang behind.
“Why aren’t you staying by Ha-rang’s side?”
Take it, Kim Chan-uk. It doesn’t have to be perfect…!
That was the moment.
Kim Chan-uk’s eyes changed in an instant.
“You’d never understand even if you died and came back to life.”
An ad-lib from Kim Chan-uk, who didn’t know about the discarded script. But the emotion was alive and raw.
Kim Chan-uk was giving everything he had to receive my performance.
Good.
Then I would do the same—without holding anything back.
I ran straight at Kim Chan-uk.
“Uh… huh?!”
A flustered Kim Chan-uk.
Let’s land a solid one on Min-woo, the bastard who tormented Ha-rang so much.
This is a truly ridiculous adaptation, Writer Yun Song-i.
But I liked it.
Here I come, Kim Chan-uk.
I swung my fist at Kim Chan-uk’s face. At the same time, he collapsed right where he stood.
Short screams erupted from the audience.
“Kyaaak!” “What the—?!” “Did he actually hit him?”
It must have looked real enough to confuse the audience. Of course it did.
I really had hit him.
No, I hadn’t intended to hit him at all?! I had only swung my fist from a distance where it couldn’t possibly connect.
Kim Chan-uk was grinning at me.
An expression that said he’d taken one on purpose.
This is ridiculous.
The moment I swung, Kim Chan-uk had leaned his face right into the punch. One hundred percent intentional. This was insurance fraud.
Still.
You did well, Kim Chan-uk.
Thanks to Kim Chan-uk’s impromptu madness, the play naturally flowed into the revised version Writer Yun Song-i had kept hidden.
Now what’s left is.
I ignored the flustered Min-woo lying on the ground and walked toward Ha-rang.
What I had to do from here was something that would have been completely absurd in the original story. But I believed.
If it was Lee Se-rin—the one who could show perfect method acting without needing an ability like Director’s Vision.
The greatest Korean actress I had respected.
She would surely return here not as Lee Se-rin, but as Ha-rang.
In this moment, as Sang-cheol, I would convey my heart to Ha-rang. With the greatest performance possible.
I kept walking toward Ha-rang.
With heavy, labored steps. As if someone were holding me back. With a heart weighed down by sorrow.
The direction in front of me kept shifting. I was inside Director’s Vision. I couldn’t see the lights or anything else.
But it was all right.
I understood now. If it was Director Lee Tae-ryun, he would be pouring light down on Lee Se-rin.
To highlight both her and me.
But I wouldn’t follow that.
Instead, I stepped in front of Lee Se-rin and blocked the intense lighting that was supposed to fall on her—the light that would illuminate her trauma.
“…Haa… haa…”
Lee Se-rin looked visibly confused.
Can I do this?
According to Writer Yun Song-i’s script, Sang-cheol would confess his feelings to Ha-rang here.
At great length. Pedantically. Then he would leave behind a Ha-rang who could never accept it and disappear.
That would have been fine.
But it wasn’t enough.
Would Sang-cheol really have done that?
No, he wouldn’t.
I took the carving knife out of my pocket.
Not as Kim Doyun, but as Sang-cheol, I spoke.
“…I wanted to give this to you.”
I placed the carving knife into Lee Se-rin’s trembling hand.
The sincerity Sang-cheol wanted to convey—the man who must have once carved Ha-rang’s likeness.
Don’t be in pain anymore.
Why are you obsessed with a guy like that?
I was jealous of Min-woo.
Because you existed, I….
The script had been filled with countless lines, but such a long speech wasn’t necessary.
Instead, I looked into Lee Se-rin’s eyes.
Come back, Lee Se-rin.
The actress Korea boasts about. The greatest actress I respect.
I closed my eyes for a moment. Then, with genuine feeling and a faint smile, I looked at Ha-rang.
“You’re still smiling so beautifully.”
Those words were Sang-cheol’s farewell, his confession, and his lingering regret.
Lee Se-rin’s body had gone rigid against her will and refused to obey.
Move, damn it…!
She had to do this. If she was Lee Myeong-hwa’s daughter, Lee Se-rin, she could not make a mistake on a stage like this!
Despite that thought, her vocal cords and body would not move.
It had started the moment the lighting fell. That sound. That tiny rupture that might not even have been audible.
It was too similar to the sound from that day ten years ago.
Mom.
Her mother, who had died in a stage accident. The horrific scene became a trigger and flooded Lee Se-rin’s vision.
Her mother, frozen and staring at her. Rumors that it might have been intentional. The accident that was covered up in an instant.
Lee Se-rin’s breathing grew rapid.
Min-woo’s lines could be heard. Kim Chan-uk’s voice reached her.
But they didn’t connect.
Where was this place? Ha-rang’s hospital room, or the stage from ten years ago?
In Lee Se-rin’s eyes, she could no longer tell them apart.
What should she do? What could she do?
Her only mother lay collapsed, body rigid. The fallen lighting blazed down on the young Lee Se-rin.
Under the scorching light pouring down on her, just like that day, she simply squeezed her eyes shut in terror of that brightness.
The feeling of having become a powerless ten-year-old child again.
Please.
Please.
She knew no one would come, yet—
Someone help me.
That was when it happened.
Footsteps that weren’t in the script.
Someone was blocking the light that had been piercing down on her, turning it into backlighting.
Kim Doyun…?
A cold sensation touched her hand. It was the carving knife.
“I wanted to give this to you.” “You’re still smiling so beautifully, Ha-rang.”
Kim Doyun’s acting was telling her. Come back. This isn’t the stage yet. This is the world of Flowers Fall.
She couldn’t tell whether the voice belonged to Kim Doyun or Sang-cheol. She didn’t need to know.
Either way, the light that had been illuminating her was now blocked. At the same time, the light that had shone on her that day vanished as well.
“Ha…”
Lee Se-rin smiled.
Only then did the tears she had been holding back finally fall. Not as Lee Se-rin, but as Ha-rang.
At some point the stage had transformed back into the hospital room. It was no longer the previous dark, heavy atmosphere but a poignant direction bathed in the soft light of sunset.
I had changed the perfect direction Director Lee Tae-ryun had imagined.
At the same time, Lee Se-rin had returned as Ha-rang. A single tear fell from Ha-rang’s eye onto the carving knife.
How could she switch into that performance so instantly?
As expected of a genius.
With Ha-rang’s tears as the finale, the stage faded to black.
We did it.
According to the revised script, Sang-cheol’s appearance ended here. All that remained was the acting between Lee Se-rin and Kim Chan-uk.
Hoo.
I was about to head backstage when—
“Br-bravo…!”
A woman’s voice rang out, thick with emotion.
It sounded familiar. I turned around.
Far back in the audience seats stood Han Sa-jang of Samryong Foods, eyes glistening with tears.
My mother stood beside her.
You were watching.
She kept her lips pressed tightly together, yet she was smiling brightly. Simply proud of her son.
“Hoo…”
Tears threatened to spill. I held them back.
I was still on stage.
That was when it started.
Beginning with Samryong noona’s bravo, an enormous wave of applause crashed down—greater than anything I had ever felt.
The sound was so loud it made my ears ring.
“Haha…”
My legs, my fingertips, my entire body trembled.
It felt like my heart would burst, yet laughter kept slipping out.
I did it.
Kim Doyun. Twenty years as an actor. The eighty-seventh entry in his filmography.
And
one month into his acting life. His very first film.
I came down from the stage, breathing hard. At the same time, Director Lee Tae-ryun came rushing toward me, shouting.
“Kim Doyun, you crazy bastard…!”
Who would have thought the day would come when I’d be cursed at by Director Lee Tae-ryun.
“Director, the stage isn’t over yet.”
“The stage isn’t over and I already feel like I’m going to die. Thanks to some lunatic.”
I lowered my head.
Director Lee Tae-ryun never forgave anyone who rebelled against his direction.
Which meant I had properly gotten on his bad side.
To cause an accident like this on the first stage of a director I respected so deeply.
But what could I do? The scenery inside Director’s Vision had clearly changed. It meant I had altered the direction Director Lee Tae-ryun had imagined as perfect.
I’d have to be satisfied with having landed that one blow.
I looked at Director Lee Tae-ryun.
“You…”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
This would surely be the last time I ever saw Director Lee Tae-ryun.
I bowed deeply to the director I had loved and resented more than anyone.
“Thank you.”
“What…?”
I had seen it inside Director’s Vision. The director named Lee Tae-ryun was the kind of man who could instantly create the best possible direction even in response to my arbitrary actions.
As expected. The mise-en-scène that had fascinated me for twenty years was no illusion.
I was grateful to have realized that.
“Director, you truly are incredible. You will make an astonishing film one day. Perhaps—no, you will definitely achieve Korea’s first ten-million-viewer milestone.”
Lee Tae-ryun answered with a slightly flustered expression.
“What is this, all of a sudden with the flattery…”
“I mean it. I simply wanted to tell you now. Because I have a feeling we won’t meet again.”
At my words, Director Lee Tae-ryun rubbed his face as if it were absurd and muttered.
“Don’t talk nonsense, Kim Doyun… When I’ve finally broken out of my own world.”
“Pardon?”
After a brief silence, Director Lee Tae-ryun sank to the floor as though drained and let out a deep sigh.
He lifted his head and met my eyes.
“It means I acknowledge it.”
“What do you…”
Director Lee Tae-ryun gritted his teeth and shouted.
“Damn it! I acknowledge it!”
Lee Tae-ryun wore an expression that looked like he might cry at any moment, completely unfitting for his age.
“Can’t you understand, Kim Doyun!”
“Yes?”
My heart began to race.
“In my eyes there is no sparkle, no talent visible…!”
Lee Tae-ryun looked at me with an expression that defied description.
“You bastard. Your shine is driving me insane.”
For a moment my mind went blank. Something hot surged up from deep inside.
I had been acknowledged.
The director I respected to the point of madness.
Had acknowledged me.
Director Lee Tae-ryun touched the corner of his eye and spoke.
“After watching your performance, I realized there are things my eyes cannot see.”
A shiver ran through my entire body.
“Kim Doyun, I still don’t fully understand what kind of actor you are. But once I abandoned my beliefs… no, my stubbornness, one thing became clearly visible.”
Lee Tae-ryun paused for a moment. Then he looked straight into my eyes again.
“…I want to see more of your acting.”