A Beautiful World Without You
She knew Ji-sook was gone, and still the fact that the person who had helped her up was not Ji-sook struck her like a blow. Cheon-young's face twisted as if she might cry, but she refused, in the end, to let a single tear fall.
To the passersby, the sight was merely admirable.
"What a pretty little girl, so brave not even crying. Be more careful next time."
Cheon-young looked for a moment at the person who had helped her up, then bowed her head in thanks. Then she ran again. Yang Ho-gun and Kang Geon-bok chased after her with pained expressions.
She fell again and again—picking herself up alone, sometimes lifted by Kang Geon-bok—and she did not stop until her knees and elbows were a bloody ruin and her ankles had swollen thick. The place she reached like that was Ji-sook's graveside.
"Did you tell her of this place?"
"Not yet..."
Had Cheon-young found Ji-sook's grave from Yang Ho-gun's explanation alone, or had she truly located it this time through some supernatural gift? I asked Director Hong Il-beom, but he palmed the decision off on me.
So I answered that Cheon-young would never have stopped until she found Ji-sook's grave. Yang Ho-gun's directions had been vague, and Cheon-young never did develop any supernatural power. What drove her all the way to the end was her love for Ji-sook.
A wreck of blood and sweat and dirt, Cheon-young sank down before Ji-sook's grave. She stared at the burial mound, gasping for breath, then looked around at the landscape.
When Mom died before my regression, I had been swallowed by a cold rage. I had sworn I would thoroughly smash everything that had killed her.
But Cheon-young? Hee-yeong and Baek-yeong were already dead. Cheon-young had no one left to take revenge on.
All that remained for the child was grief.
All filming wrapped on the image of Yang Ho-gun and Kang Geon-bok comforting and looking after a devastated Cheon-young. Jo Yong-jin hoisted me up from where he'd been holding me and let out a cheer.
"Great work, everyone!"
"Wooo!"
"Ahahaha! Yong-jin's actually laughing like that—has the sun risen in the west?"
Everyone clapped and shouted, their faces caught between relief and a lingering emptiness. Director Hong Il-beom, his face bright, shook hands with the veteran staff.
There was no restaurant that could hold the entire production, so they decided to hold the wrap dinner after returning to Seoul, and the actors would pull out first.
"Su-a, let's work together again. I learned so much from you."
"Me too! Next time I'll show you an even cooler side of me."
Ye Na-ri and Bae Su-chan squeezed my hands as they made their promises. Both of them looked far more at ease than when we'd first met.
Bae Su-chan especially had been beaming ever since his manager was replaced. Apparently it was someone who'd helped him a great deal even before his debut.
For the record, Gwon Du-il had told me the previous manager had been swapped out over a pile of problems. He'd looked thoroughly satisfied, so I figured he'd handled it for good.
Covering up a family's illegal filming charges is basically the same as holding a favor over them.
I hadn't asked for anything extra, but that agency's CEO would still feel like someone had dirt on him. I'd also confirmed there were no indecent photos or pictures of Mom on the camera attached to those glasses, so this was as far as it needed to go for now. Bae Su-chan shouldn't face any blowback once he went back.
"We're still on good terms, aren't we, little Miss Su-a? You'll say a nice hello at the wrap dinner, won't you?"
"Unnie, Miss Su-a hates it when you talk like that. Oppa's right, isn't he, Miss Su-a?"
"Oppa, at your age? Where did your shame go?"
Choi Seo-rin and Ahn Cha-young fussed over me like that and then left. Unlike the roles they'd played, both of them were highly social, and they had a lot of people to say goodbye to.
Jo Yong-jin came over too, looking far brighter than when we'd first met.
"Thanks."
"For what?"
"...I've never been on a set where the atmosphere was this good. It's because of you."
His first lead role being in a Hong Il-beom film must have weighed on him heavily. I smiled along with him.
"I'm the one who should thank you for treating me so comfortably."
The staff would often grin and say they'd never been on a set with such a good atmosphere. What set this shoot apart from others came down, as always, to the director and the leads. In that regard, I'd been lucky.
"You worked hard."
Director Hong Il-beom offered me a handshake as well. I made a show of complaining.
"It was really hard. Please shoot something a little easier next time."
"Says the kid who had the most fun of anyone."
He ruffled my hair roughly. I was genuinely relieved that, this time, my first film with him had wrapped without incident.
I finished saying goodbye to everyone else and climbed into the van. If Gwon Du-il hadn't cut things off midway, I would have been stuck shaking hands for a good while longer.
"Su-a, you worked so hard."
Mom, who'd already been waiting in the car, pulled me into a tight hug. I wriggled in her arms for a long moment before sitting up properly and buckling my seatbelt.
The drive home was quiet. Mom and Gwon Du-il, who'd had to come down to Gangwon Province with me every week, must have built up quite a bit of fatigue themselves.
To keep Gwon Du-il from getting bored behind the wheel, I tossed out conversation now and then or sang to liven things up. He was bouncing his shoulders along to my singing when he suddenly spoke.
"Wrap's done, and now it's on to editing, so let's have you rest until the release date is set, Su-a."
"Huh? All of a sudden?"
"Sudden, nothing. You spent your whole vacation shooting and never got to play, and even after school started you came all the way down to Gangwon every weekend through September. I'm not booking anything for a while, so get some real rest."
"But then how are you and the staff going to eat, sir?"
"Yah—a kid's not supposed to worry about the grown-ups. And I'm an actor at this company too, you know."
He'd founded an agency, but Gwon Du-il was still a working actor in demand. Scripts probably came in for him more than they did for me. For now.
"Don't worry about the company. When I tell you to rest, you rest for real. Once publicity starts you'll be insanely busy again—you won't get to rest even if you want to. Besides, this was your first feature. When the tension lets go, the fatigue can hit you all at once. I'm taking at least a week off training too, so don't push it. If you get sick, you go straight to the hospital. You call me, too. And..."
Dealing with Gwon Du-il when he got that talkative was exhausting and nothing else. I leaned against Mom and yawned.
"Okay. But I don't want to rest for more than a month."
"Why? If it's about name recognition..."
"No. Once the movie comes out my profile will go up anyway, so I'm not worried about that. I'm just going to be bored."
"You want to work because you're bored? Isn't this the age when playing is the best thing there is?"
"That's for babies going into kindergarten."
"No it isn't. Grown-ups like playing best too..."
The pointless back-and-forth ate up the time, and before I knew it we'd arrived. Gwon Du-il dropped Mom and me off in front of the house and issued one last warning.
"Anyway, we promised at least a week of rest! If you get sick, you call me immediately. I'll stretch that vacation right out."
"Aww."
"Don't you 'aww' me. That's A. Then it's B, C, and D, you little brat."
"..."
"Ahem, ahem... Anyway, get some real rest! I'll be going, ma'am!"
When I went stone-faced at that appalling attempt at humor, Gwon Du-il fled in a hurry.
Hmm... nothing else for it. If they wouldn't give me work, I'd have to go find it myself.
As it happened, a drama that would be a massive hit next year should be in the casting-prep stage right about now.
Time to lay a little groundwork?
"Su-a, did you finish shooting the movie? Won't you give me spoilers?"
"How was Jo Yong-jin in person? Does he really glare at people and look down on them like that?"
"Hey, move! Lee Su-a, show me your math homework. Please please please!"
"Su-a did her homework while shooting a movie and you want to copy it for free?"
"If you show me I'll watch the movie a hundred times!"
"Don't believe him, Su-a! He's a liar!"
...
Hurry.
Please, just let me work already...
How was going to school harder than acting in a sea of fire? I left school completely wiped out from dealing with the kids.
Acting like a ten-year-old in front of adults was one thing. Pretending to be the same ten as actual ten-year-olds, in front of actual ten-year-olds, was far more difficult. Even when I matched them as closely as I could, something about me still stood out, and the kids clung to me without a moment's pause.
Skipping a grade would only make me stick out more, and there wasn't much point to it besides. I also didn't want an image forming of an actress who's so good at studying you have to wonder why she bothers acting, instead of an actress who's good at both acting and studying.
One way or another, it meant I had to attend diligently through middle school, which was compulsory.
Life... isn't easy even the second time around.
I stepped out the school gates looking distinctly worse for wear, and there, for some reason, was Mom.