Acting Academy
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"The contents are as follows. I purchased goods in Iran. The product name is 'Baeksol,' and…"
After delivering roughly a minute of intelligence from Jeon Su-hwan's final operation in his previous life, he bowed once more, stepped out of the phone booth still in the guise of an old man, and left.
From there he retraced his path in reverse order, reclaiming each hidden bag, changing clothes again, and swapping bags and outfits several more times before finally returning home.
It's already four months old. The information might be past its shelf life — but with this, I can finally say goodbye to Jeon Su-hwan's life.
My country — final operation complete.
My past life — you worked hard.
That former existence had been one of endless suspicion and performance, the life of an operative and a spy. Day by day his mind had frayed; loneliness had been a constant companion through those bleak, rough years. Even so, he did not regret the days he had lived in devotion.
Simply finishing with a clean ending, and with a light heart, was enough.
That night, Yeon-woo's father, Ryu Cheol-ung, was scolded by his wife for stashing his hiking laundry somewhere and then dumping it all into the washing machine at once. He spent the rest of the night nursing his sense of injustice.
"I'm telling you, that really wasn't my laundry…"
Yeon-woo felt a little sorry for his berated father, but he had no choice but to play dumb.
Exams were over, and Yeon-woo had more or less settled into Ryu Yeon-woo's life.
Having shaken off the last lingering attachment to his previous existence, he adapted to this new one and burned with the resolve to live again — this time as an actor.
He had always been interested in acting, and while he couldn't be sure how useful it would prove, the skills he had honed doing undercover work abroad left him confident in his ability to perform in everyday life.
Whether those past experiences will translate into performance in front of a camera or on a stage is still an open question.
Still, a broad range of experience and the ability to control his facial muscles with relative freedom had to be better than starting from absolute zero.
"Haa…"
In the art room, painting a poster-paint assignment for a performance evaluation, Yeon-woo let out a sigh.
"Why do you keep sighing? Did you mess something up?"
Jun-su, painting at the desk beside him, glanced over and spoke up.
"No. There's something I want to try, so I've been thinking about getting a part-time job."
The answer piqued Seong-sik's interest enough that he turned around from the seat in front of them.
"What needs a part-time job?"
"I was thinking of trying an acting academy."
At the unexpected reply, Jun-su and Seong-sik both widened their eyes and spoke at once.
"Acting?"
"Acting?"
But Jun-su soon nodded as if it made sense.
"Well, your grades are good, but with that face…"
In this day and age, even landing a good university and a professional career couldn't really compare to the success of a star. That much was true.
"If it's acting, don't you have to go to some famous place in Seoul?"
"I just want to learn the basics for now."
Still turned around, Seong-sik looked at him as if the whole dilemma were unnecessary.
"Then skip the part-time job and just tell your parents! If I were ranked first in the whole school, my mom would let me do anything."
Jun-su lightly smacked Seong-sik's shoulder and scolded him.
"You and him are the same? If my son were first in the school, I would never allow it. And it could cost a lot of money."
Yeon-woo smiled at Jun-su's words.
"Come on, I'm not planning on some expensive academy. My family's just ordinary — not rich, not poor."
The phrase my family had slipped out so naturally that it felt a little awkward, yet something warm and unnameable stirred in him as he added,
"They'd probably support me no matter what I said I wanted to do. I was just thinking about it because I don't like asking them for money."
Seong-sik shook his head in admiration.
"Whoa. So you even thought about a part-time job? A filial son with character on my level — I acknowledge you, Lord Ryu."
The moment Seong-sik struck a pose and cracked the joke, Jun-su went on the attack.
"Yeah, you're a filial son too. A fire-attribute filial son."
"What was that, you punk?"
In seconds the two of them were bickering and roughhousing.
"Hey, you unfilial friends. You're done with your paintings before you start yapping, right?"
The art teacher had appeared out of nowhere and lightly seized Seong-sik and Jun-su by the scruffs of their necks. The classroom fell quiet once more.
A few days later, just as he was seriously about to look into short-term part-time work a student could actually do, a solution arrived from an unexpected place.
This is an announcement from the broadcasting club. Students Ryu Yeon-woo, Kim Min-ji, Choi Woo-jin…
The classroom speakers called out Ryu Yeon-woo and several other students.
"What? Did you get in trouble? No — that can't be it."
"They're all the top students. Probably giving out awards."
Hearing Jun-su and Seong-sik, Yeon-woo rose from his seat.
"I'll be right back."
Summoned to the principal's office, he took a few simple commemorative photos and received a one-million-won academic excellence scholarship from the alumni association.
For Yeon-woo, who had no desire to waste time on part-time work or anything else unnecessary, the timing could not have been better.
"Perfect. Luck's on my side in this life."
That evening, after coming home from school and sitting down to dinner, Yeon-woo spoke to his parents at once.
"Father, Mother — I want to try acting."
"Acting, all of a sudden?"
Yeon-woo nodded.
Then he drew a white envelope from his pocket.
"I received a scholarship at school today. There's something I want to try with it. I'd like to learn acting."
"Whoa."
Beside him, his younger sister So-hyun, who had been quietly eating, jabbed him in the side.
"If you become a star, are you gonna give me lots of allowance?"
"You're counting your chickens already. I just want to learn it once."
Yeon-woo huffed a quiet laugh at So-hyun's talk of pocket money.
Still, their son — who had been so depressed — now wanted to throw himself into something with real passion. For the parents, that alone meant unconditional support.
"Of course. How could we not do everything for you? Even without the scholarship, Mom would welcome this with both hands."
"Ahem. When I was young, people used to tell me I should be a TV star just walking down the street."
At their father Ryu Cheol-ung's words, Yeon-woo and So-hyun both tilted their heads at the same time.
"Hey — I put on weight as I got older, you brats."
Cheol-ung patted his own stomach, then looked at Yeon-woo.
In truth, as the weight continued to come off, even his parents could see that their son's looks were far from ordinary. If he shed the rest of it, he would clearly become quite striking.
"So have you decided where you'll go to learn acting?"
Yeon-woo answered his mother at once.
"I don't think I need to go all the way to Seoul. I'll just try something simple here in Daejeon."
"Are you sure that's all right? People say arts fields are hard unless you're in Seoul. You know Aunt Young-hee? Her daughter has been an idol trainee for years, and she says it's brutal."
Yeon-woo smiled gently at his worried mother.
"If someone's meant to make it, they'll make it anywhere. Schoolwork matters too, so I'll try it in Daejeon first."
His father nodded at that.
"All right. Look some places up online and we'll talk. Let's go together."
Yeon-woo had planned to go alone, but he quickly remembered he was a minor and simply nodded without argument.
"Yes, Father. Thank you."
After that, he searched for an acting academy to visit for a consultation and made his own preparations as well.
"I should watch some footage first, right?"
After school, in his room, he watched currently popular dramas and committed the actors' expressions and movements to memory.
In his operative days, infiltrating a specific organization and blending in by analyzing and imitating others' behavior was something Yeon-woo had done so often it was second nature.
"Hmm. Like this?"
He alternated between the TV and the mirror, copying expressions.
It was a hastily improvised imitation, but it looked roughly decent.
"I can't tell on my own whether it looks okay because the face is decent, or because the acting actually works."
He definitely needed a professional's help.
Meanwhile, in a prosecutor's office at the Busan District Prosecutors' Office.
A solidly built man who looked to be in his early thirties was hammering the small keys of a keyboard with large hands.
Still at his computer well into the dark of night, the man working so diligently was a young prosecutor whose desk nameplate read Han Hae-un.
Tapping the edge of the desk, Prosecutor Han Hae-un sank into thought.
"Team Leader Jeon Su-hwan… just who the hell is he? Am I losing my mind? Looking for someone who appears in my dreams — there's no way a person like that actually exists."
And yet he felt he had to find him. He simply could not stop.
An inexplicable sense of mission kept rising in him — the feeling that there was something he needed to tell that man.
Prosecutor Han Hae-un's investigation continued late into the night.
That Saturday, Yeon-woo visited an acting academy in one of Daejeon's busy districts for a consultation, accompanied by his father.
Jeong Cheol-min.
After years of theater company life in Hyehwa and a couple of small supporting roles in commercial films, he had returned to his hometown of Daejeon and opened an acting academy. Now he felt he was facing the most decisive moment since that day.
Director Jeong Cheol-min had been teaching the college-prep class as usual when something unusual happened mid-lesson. Instructor Yoon, who handled consultations, knocked, came in, and whispered in his ear.
"Director. I think you should go handle this consultation yourself. The face is… not ordinary."
After long years in the industry, Instructor Yoon could assess whether a face had potential as an actor more accurately than a plastic surgery coordinator.
He nodded at her words, briefly handed the class to another instructor, and headed for the consultation room.
"So, if I understand correctly, your son has shown an interest in acting, and you've come by lightly just to have a consultation — is that right, sir?"
"Haha, yes, that's right, Director. This kid just ranked first in his entire school, you know. As a father, honestly, with grades like that, I wonder if he shouldn't just focus on his studies and go into one of those four-letter professions everyone wants…"
His son had never given him much to brag about, but after the boy's complete transformation, Ryu Cheol-ung had, in a matter of months, become a hopelessly doting father with bragging rights permanently equipped.
Director Jeong Cheol-min, however, had already seen the consulting student's face. He played along with Cheol-ung's words, but he had no intention of letting this opportunity that had rolled into his lap slip away.
He trusted Instructor Yoon's eye. From the moment she had come to him saying he should handle the consultation himself, he had already made up his mind.