I Acted Too Well, and Now the Child Actors Are Obsessed with Me
After the filming of that seemingly endless drama finally wrapped, I returned to ordinary life.
Ordinary, of course, only in the sense that I spent my days shuttling between kindergarten and home like any other six-year-old—slow, quiet, and utterly uneventful.
Saying it like that makes me sound like some old man retiring to the countryside.
“….”
“So, Da-young, when is that drama going to air? What’s it about?”
Scratch that.
Apparently perfect peace didn’t exist in this world either, because the moment I stepped into kindergarten I found myself surrounded by the teachers.
“So, Da-young. When is that drama going to be on TV? All the teachers are waiting so eagerly to see you.”
As they spoke, they slyly pressed a yogurt drink with a flower-shaped straw into my hands like a bribe, their eyes sparkling with curiosity and anticipation. I could feel the other teachers nearby quietly leaning in to listen.
I accepted the yogurt politely, rounded my eyes, and put on my most guileless smile.
“Mm, filming went really well! The drama… well, I think it’ll come out after the year turns. My parts are all done, but the other actors are still shooting their scenes.”
“Oh my, so we have to wait until next year. Then what’s the story about? Our Da-young is the super cool main character, right?”
“Can you at least tell the teachers a little bit about the plot?”
No, these people couldn’t just demand spoilers that blatantly.
Faced with the teacher’s transparent attempt to fish for hints, I pressed a finger to my lips and gave a mischievous little grin.
“If you find out the story now, it won’t be as fun when you watch it later. You’ll know everything once you see it yourselves!”
“Ahaha, oh my, you’re right! Security is important. Of course it’s more fun to watch it on air—we teachers were being so dense.”
My cheeky answer made the teachers burst into fond laughter and nod in approval.
Watching their reaction, I swallowed a quiet sigh.
Well, even if I told them the truth, it wasn’t exactly the kind of subject that should come out of a six-year-old’s mouth anyway.
Enflix’s exclusive drama, Flower of Blood.
Ever since I’d somehow ended up walking the path of an actress, my entire life had revolved around filming that drama—yet I actually knew almost nothing about it.
All I had were a few fragmentary facts: it was a rare noir crime-revenge story with a female lead, uncommon even by global standards, let alone in Korea.
Well, I know plenty now.
Seo Da-young’s world was similar to the one I’d lived in before, yet different. Things that had been popular in my past life might not exist here, and sometimes the reverse was true.
And sometimes a drama that had only aired a decade later in my previous life would premiere ten years early.
That was why I only remembered I already knew this drama when filming was nearly finished. Flower of Blood had originally come out in the 2020s, not the 2010s.
No wonder digging through my memories had turned up nothing.
I sucked bitterly on the yogurt straw and let out a wry smile.
I remembered that the moment it dropped, the drama had held the number-two spot on Enflix’s domestic viewer rankings for weeks on end.
But its real brilliance had shone overseas. It had done decently at home, yet the international reception was on another level entirely—critics’ scores and public buzz both sky-high, especially in the West.
There had been one fatal problem, though.
Despite all that success and critical acclaim, the reason it had languished forever at number two before finally charting out was simple:
A month before its release, “that game” had launched and set the entire world on fire with an unprecedented frenzy.
So in my memory, Flower of Blood had always carried the image of a cursed masterpiece more than anything else.
And yet here it was, airing a full ten years earlier than in my world—and as Enflix’s very first Korean original drama, no less.
Whether that would turn out to be a curse or a blessing for the show, I had no way of knowing.
Heh. The yogurt tastes especially bitter today.
“Hey, Teacher Kim. Da-young is so mature and cute, but sometimes she gets that lonely, faraway look all by herself. Why do you think she does that?”
“Just leave her be. Seeing her strike little poses like that on her own is actually pretty adorable for a kid her age.”
…
Ahem. Ahem!
Anyway, time flew by until the release of Flower of Blood.
Ah. One more thing.
Even though I said my life had returned to normal after filming ended, not everything had gone back to the way it was.
On weekends when I didn’t have kindergarten, I often ended up meeting privately with the other child actors from Flower of Blood.
What surprised me was that it wasn’t just Kim Chae-eun—Yoon Ha-eun and Kang Si-woo came along too.
Wait a second.
Come to think of it, at kindergarten I was the popular kid actor, and on weekends after school I hung out with other kid actors…
Had my life ever actually gone back to being simple and quiet…?
“Seo Da-young! What are you doing over there by yourself?”
While I was busy overthinking, Ha-eun called out to me in her usual prim voice from a corner of the playroom on the café’s second floor.
She carefully checked my expression, then pulled something colorful and sparkly from her bag.
“Look at this? It’s the new limited-edition Fairy Cure compact. Jealous?”
Watching Ha-eun proudly show off her merch with her nose in the air, I couldn’t help an inward snort of laughter.
My whole “break through with acting” strategy to win over those two little brats who used to freeze me out had basically been wasted effort—by the time the plan finished, filming itself was already over.
But that didn’t mean it had been completely meaningless.
After witnessing my performance up close that day, Yoon Ha-eun and Kang Si-woo’s attitudes had flipped a full 180 degrees.
Even now that shooting was completely done, the two kids kept pestering their parents so they could desperately keep hanging out with me.
I casually glanced toward the terrace.
At a table a little ways off, the parents were watching us with warm, fond eyes.
I matched their gazes with an angelic smile and gave them a bright little grin.
Once I confirmed they were cooing and looking even more delighted, I secretly turned my head and let out a deep sigh.
Being six years old really isn’t easy either.
“Want me to let you touch it once…? It even makes sounds?”
Ha-eun was still putting on her prim, prideful act, but her eyes were practically begging to squeeze into the space between me and Chae-eun and become friends.
She really did have her cute side.
And just as much as Yoon Ha-eun had changed, the other little brat—Kang Si-woo—had transformed in an equally terrifying way.
“Da-young, aren’t you thirsty? Should big brother go get you some grape juice? Or should I grab that doll over there for you?”
Kang Si-woo hovered around me, earnestly trying to play the role of a caring, cool “big brother.”
He seemed determined to act like a little prince just to win my favor.
“….”
I stared at him with cold eyes.
Yes. Ever since that last shoot, Kang Si-woo’s passionate crush had completely switched targets from Kim Chae-eun to me.
But I wasn’t mentally young enough to get butterflies over an eight-year-old’s puppy love—and more importantly, how was I supposed to look kindly on a boy who, from our very first meeting, had treated me coldly just so he could cling to Kim Chae-eun?
Unlike my evaluation of Kim Chae-eun, which had skyrocketed after a rocky start, my internal rating of Kang Si-woo had already crashed through the floor and was still plummeting into the basement.
If this were a stock, it would’ve been delisted by now.
“Uh, w-why are you looking at me like that? Do you not like it?”
My gaze must have been too icy, because Kang Si-woo stammered in panic.
I let out a long, quiet sigh, shook my head slowly, and tossed out one short remark before turning away without a shred of regret.
“Player.”
“Wh-what…!”
Whether Kang Si-woo froze in shock behind me or not, I walked over to where Chae-eun was sitting cozily with Ha-eun.
Ever since Ha-eun had taken my advice and started getting into Fairy Cure, the two of them had grown pretty close.
See? I told you from the beginning to bond over Fairy Cure.
When I quietly sat down, Chae-eun blinked and asked,
“Weren’t you with Si-woo oppa? Why’d you come over here?”
I answered with a completely deadpan face.
“I hate players.”
“…?”
Chae-eun tilted her head, not fully grasping my meaning, but soon decided not to care and smoothly changed the subject.
And so our conversation drifted in a rather unexpected direction.
“Did you watch the anime this morning?”
“Fairy Cure?”
“Yeah.”
“I did. The way Fairy Brownie told her sworn sister Fairy Éclair to leave this place to her, then held off countless soldiers from the evil kingdom with nothing but a single Magical Long Spear—it was pure emotion.”
“R-right.”
It was a truly absurd sight.
These two kids who had been praised as geniuses on set spent their time together talking about games and cartoons instead of acting or filming.
Watching Chae-eun chatter away excitedly, I suddenly grew curious and asked casually,
“Chae-eun, why do you act? If you love animation that much, don’t you want a job related to that later?”
If she used her talent, something like voice acting could work perfectly.
At my question, the sparkle in Chae-eun’s eyes dimmed a little. She fidgeted with a doll in her small hands and murmured quietly,
“My mom… is an actress. Mom wants me to become a great actress.”
“You’re doing it because your mom wants you to? Don’t you want to do what you actually like?”
“…Then are you any different?”
For a moment my words stuck in my throat.
She’d hit the bullseye.
I, too, was walking the path of a child actress not by my own will, but solely for the sake of my mother, Han Ari.
When I couldn’t say anything, Chae-eun gave a shy little smile and gently took my hand.
“See? We’re exactly the same.”
Looking down at that, I smiled quietly a beat later.
“…Yeah.”
In that moment I realized for the first time that I no longer saw this six-year-old as a little kid I had to look after—but as a “friend” I could share my true feelings with.
Man. I must be going crazy.
I never expected that just because my body was six years old, I’d actually start feeling kinship and emotional bonds with a real six-year-old.
That was when it happened.
“No fair, what fun stuff are you two talking about by yourselves! Let me in too!”
“Seo Da-young! Explain what you meant earlier!”
Before I knew it, Ha-eun and Si-woo came barging noisily into our space.
Feeling the sudden warmth pressing in from both sides, I sighed inwardly—but on the outside I welcomed them with a soft smile that didn’t look the least bit unwilling.
At this rate I wouldn’t even be able to enjoy quiet moments anymore.
I acted too well, and now the child actors are obsessed with me.
That really does sound like a web novel title.
Time flew, and it became 2012. I turned seven.
That was the year no one saw coming—when a ridiculous song with a horse-riding dance move suddenly became a global mega-hit, and countless foreigners started singing and dancing along to Korean music.
At the height of worldwide fascination with K-culture, the teaser for Flower of Blood was released.