Jeong Cheol-min and the Acting Test
"Aigoo, Father, these days succeeding in this field is more envied than even the professional careers, isn't it? With a son who takes after your fine looks and has turned out so outstanding, wouldn't it be a loss to the entire Korean entertainment industry if he were to waste away in some other field?"
Jeong Cheol-min paused for breath and pressed on.
"As it happens, we're running a promotion right now—a free one-month trial of lessons—so why not let him try it out, even just as a hobby! Learning to act teaches you how to express emotions, and it can also help relieve the stress your son has built up from his studies!"
The staff member sitting in the inner office marveled that their usually tongue-tied director could fire off words like a machine gun like that. Around then, Yeon-woo's father Cheol-ung spoke up.
"Oh, a promotion right now? This must be fate—how perfect! Yeon-woo, what do you think?"
"Yes, Father, I'm fine with it. I'll give it my best and learn properly."
At that reply, Director Jeong Cheol-min cheered inwardly.
The current Yeon-woo had lost even more weight than when school started, to the point where he was starting to draw looks from people around him.
This kid—I have to teach him myself even if it means grinding my soul into dust!
Jeong Cheol-min was a warm-hearted, good-natured man who still poured the academy's monthly profits into covering the deficits of the local small theater so that his former students who hadn't broken out of the regional scene could keep having a stage to stand on.
In truth, he was less a shrewd businessman and more an actor clinging to his passion for the craft.
So for a man whose academy was growing precarious not just against the big Seoul schools but even in the small commercial competition of Daejeon, the existence of Ryu Yeon-woo could become the foundation to revive the place.
Of course, setting commercial reasons aside, it was a face he desperately wanted to raise as an actor at least once.
"In that case, Father, I'll take it as settled for now. I'll have a consultation with your son and then set up the lesson schedule!"
"Yes, let's do that."
Jeong Cheol-min shook hands with the student's father, Ryu Cheol-ung, and inwardly cheered once more.
Looks like that are hard to find even among the top aspiring actors in Seoul. If he just loses a little more weight, it won't be hard to find—it'll be nonexistent. Even if he has no talent, if I just steadily build up solid fundamentals, he'll be the kind who gets snapped up right away even in open auditions with hundreds-to-one competition ratios.
Director Jeong Cheol-min resolved once more to pour his soul into this.
A week passed, and around lunchtime on Saturday, Yeon-woo visited the academy again and sought out the director's office.
Knock knock.
"Teacher, hello. I'm Ryu Yeon-woo, starting lessons today."
Yeon-woo bowed politely in greeting, and Jeong Cheol-min spread his arms wide as if he'd been waiting for this.
"Oh! Yes, yes. Come on in, Yeon-woo. The way here wasn't hard, was it?"
"No, it's right in front of the subway station, so finding it was really easy. The building is huge, too. It seems like a great academy."
Yeon-woo spoke with a soft eye-smile.
The academy had moved into a building with prime location even if it meant stretching things a bit—that was Cheol-min's pride—and having it mentioned and his ego stroked like that naturally brought a smile to his lips.
"Then shall we do a light test today to see where you stand?"
"Yes, Teacher."
The two moved to an empty practice room for a simple test.
Even for Ryu Yeon-woo, who had been through every hardship imaginable, being tested in a field he'd never tried before left him a little tense.
Noticing that expression, Cheol-min quickly added,
"Don't worry too much just because I said 'test.' The muscles used in acting, the expressiveness, the facial expressions—they're all different for everyone. I'm just looking at things like which muscles you use for which expressions. It's absolutely not about judging whether you're good or bad."
"Yes, I understand!"
The spirited reply from that sculpted face already had Cheol-min smiling.
"First, let's start with something simple. Among the four emotions—joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure—let's try expressing anger. From now on, think of me as a thug who's picking a fight with you, and try threatening me."
Jeong Cheol-min figured he'd probably swagger around like a gangster, shout, or throw out some curses—anger being one of the easier emotions for even ordinary people to imitate—so he started the test with that.
"Yes, I'll give it a try."
Threaten, huh. In his past life, that was a technique he always carried with him for survival during operations in danger zones... Would it work well even with this new body?
Ryu Yeon-woo fretted a little that his current face—far too handsome compared to the somewhat rough features of his past life—might actually get in the way of the expression. He locked eyes straight with Jeong Cheol-min.
Recalling the past, he mind-controlled himself: this was a danger zone mid-operation, and the person in front of him was a target that had to be eliminated no matter what.
"Hup!"
Jeong Cheol-min's eyes went wide.
An overwhelming pressure that made him forget the current situation—that this was just an acting test with a high school student—wrapped around Cheol-min for an instant.
In that fleeting moment, inside his own practice room that felt like home, the thought that popped into Cheol-min's head was, ridiculously, I could die like this. This person is truly dangerous.
What? Did I just get scared of a high school kid?
Having spent over twenty years living the theater troupe life in Hyehwa meant he'd seen all sorts of things, and Jeong Cheol-min didn't think of himself as someone who would flinch just because someone picked a fight with him.
"Teacher?"
Ryu Yeon-woo called out to Jeong Cheol-min.
Startled out of his thoughts, Cheol-min hurriedly answered.
"Huh? Oh, right. Yeon-woo, making a scary face with that pretty mug of yours is surprisingly terrifying."
"Is that so?"
Acting... is it? Or maybe this kid has... been around a bit? He was clearly the top student in his school, though.
Cheol-min found himself having strange thoughts for a moment.
"Hmm, then this time, shall we try sorrow—one of the slightly harder emotions among the four? Some students mix it up sometimes, but it's the 'ae' for sorrow, not the 'ae' for love."
"Yes, I understand."
"Should I set up a situation to help you catch the emotion? Or do you have any sad things you can recall?"
Thinking there couldn't be much that would make an eighteen-year-old life deeply sad, Jeong Cheol-min was trying to help.
Yeon-woo nodded, recalling his past life that had been so full of ups and downs. There had to be at least one thing that would tug at his emotional strings.
"I'll try it first. If it doesn't work well, please help me."
Cheol-min got excited by Yeon-woo's proactive attitude.
"Alright, Yeon-woo, tell me right away if it doesn't work. Forcing a sad emotion when you're an ordinary person who hasn't learned acting isn't as easy as people think."
In variety shows, too, when they ask actors to perform, they often ask how quickly they can shed tears, and ordinary people see actors who can concentrate and let tears fall in a flash and call that good acting.
"Yes, I'll begin."
Yeon-woo closed his eyes and simply concentrated.
Would thinking of someone make him sad?
He had no family to begin with.
Friends... he barely had any close ones.
The colleagues who had gone ahead of him in the past?
Deaths during operations were truly rare, and in truth, the Yeon-woo of his past life had just been busy surviving in a hamster-wheel existence; he'd never felt deep connections with the people around him.
The emotions of Jeon Su-hwan, worn down through a fierce life, had been abraded and abraded again until the surface hardened.
An emotional wall so solid you couldn't even find a hole to poke with a needle.
He concentrated in the silence, but Yeon-woo couldn't find true sorrow.
"Teacher, I don't really know how to do it."
At Yeon-woo's words, Jeong Cheol-min thought, Well, of course, and pulled a candle from the cabinet in the corner of the practice room.
He dimmed the lights, lit the single candle, and told Yeon-woo to look at the flame.
Among Cheol-min's college classmates from the arts university was a therapist who treated emotions through acting.
This was a skill he'd learned from that classmate—a method like a kind of meditation therapy that lets you look back into your own heart.
It was surprisingly effective for guiding students who were clumsy with emotional expression when done repeatedly, so Cheol-min used it often.
Following the guided words Cheol-min spoke, Yeon-woo looked back beyond this short current life into his past life. He thought not of others in his life, but of himself.
He looked back on that lonely, rough life itself.
Becoming, in effect, a different person called 'Ryu Yeon-woo' and recalling the past Jeon Su-hwan from a third-person perspective made it feel more objective, and the pain and loneliness stabbed into his heart like a blade, cutting deep.
The emotional wall that had been worn down and blunted had hardened solid, but paradoxically, it was in a precarious state where it wouldn't be strange if it collapsed at any moment.
A mind that would have crumbled soon even if he hadn't died mid-operation in his past life.
What had gently soothed it and acted as a lubricant, he now realized, was the pure, young heart of the original owner of this body, 'Ryu Yeon-woo.'
A spirit weakened by bullying, yet inside it a heart more good and bright than anyone's.
When he peeled away that heart that had been barely holding on, he saw the desolate sand desert of the Middle East.
That's the place where I died.
Why was I born so lonely and died so lonely?
Why could I neither give my heart to anyone nor receive one?
Was there even a chief mourner at my funeral?
No, even the fact of my death would have been top secret.
Is there anyone who felt sorrow at my death and kept it in their heart?
You poor soul.
Barely a dozen or so seconds after Yeon-woo closed his eyes, fat tears like chicken droppings plopped from his eyes, startling Cheol-min.
He hadn't expected to fill up on the first try; he'd just meant to let him feel that there was a channel for drawing out his emotions.
Soon Yeon-woo collapsed as if falling, pouring out tears and snot, and began to wail as if his own flesh and blood had died.
Through this unexpected trigger, Ryu Yeon-woo completely cast off the darkness remaining in his heart from his past life, and in its place settled the good heart and purity that the original Ryu Yeon-woo had possessed.
Ironically, just like the flowery words Jeong Cheol-min had tacked on to persuade Yeon-woo's father, through the method of expressing emotions, he had managed to shake off the last remnants of dark emotion left in his heart.
"Aigoo, Yeon-woo? Ryu Yeon-woo?"