A Miraculous Kind of Snow
Rain poured down, and I filmed my final scene.
Shin Jiwon, sobbing, vowed to the dying Eun-ha that someday he would punish that cult of charlatans.
He did, that is.
“Cut.”
The word cut left a distinctly sour taste in the air.
The moment it fell, the staff swarmed out, wrapped Shin Jiwon in towels, and parked him in front of a heater. The acting had been good. Mine had been good, and Shin Jiwon had thrown everything he had into it—he was nearly collapsing from exhaustion. The problem was that the rain was coming down so hard the monitoring footage looked like garbage.
As it happened, the rain was beginning to ease. I glanced at Shin Jiwon and said to Director An Jiseong, “Looks like it's letting up, doesn't it?”
At my words, the director looked at Shin Jiwon. Shin Jiwon, hungry for it himself, was already nodding.
Honestly speaking, we weren't directors—we were actors. No matter how gorgeous the shot looked, that was a secondary concern. The rain was swallowing our facial expressions, and that was why we wanted to shoot it again. Any actor would feel the same. As long as my acting got to shine, I could repeat the same performance until I dropped from exhaustion. We're just that selfish when it comes to acting.
I want to keep shooting until it satisfies me. So there was no way either Shin Jiwon or I was going to let a chance to show what we could do slip away.
Director An Jiseong looked Shin Jiwon up and down once—he looked like an ordinary grown man scaled up to one and a half times—then turned his gaze on me, wasting away more and more with each take of the Eun-ha role.
“If I work a minor that hard, the blame lands on me.”
“I'm the one volunteering. Who's going to blame you? If it bothers you that much, just say no twice.”
“Ah—actually, on second thought, no.”
“You'll do it.”
“I said no.”
“Ugh, I said I want to do it again!”
When I raised my voice in theatrical protest, the director feigned shock and backed off. I looked over at Shin Jiwon—yep, delighted. His acting was all over the place, but the appetite was clearly there.
The shoot began again, out in the rain.
Lee Heeyoon had the script completely wired into him. He knew exactly what kind of acting this take demanded.
Through the entire previous shoot, Shin Jiwon had the strange feeling that Heeyoon had been offering him version after version of the scene, like a teacher coaxing a student toward understanding.
Where did I go wrong? Why did it come out different from what I'd read and analyzed?
Now and then, it made him angry. What tormented him more was that the jealousy and self-loathing boiling up inside him were directed at a kid.
Lee Heeyoon possessed one advantage that Shin Jiwon could never acquire in a lifetime of effort: he could deliver a consistent performance under any emotion, in any situation.
So a while back, Shin Jiwon had swallowed his pride once and asked him.
'Heeyoon. You know how... how do you handle it when a scene demands intensity and the intensity just won't come?'
And Lee Heeyoon had answered:
'What are you even talking about? Where's the effort supposed to go in acting? We're water. The container changes shape, and we pour into it. Push too hard and you can't fill the vessel.'
Shin Jiwon had been struck speechless, and Heeyoon had murmured to himself, 'That's what all my teachers kept saying, anyway.' Shin Jiwon asked again.
'So then. You just keep reading the script, trying to find the right answer? Is that your method?'
'That's how I think of it. But what can I even do about it? I'm not the lead, I'm not an adult, I'm not the director or the investor. This isn't a job you do alone. When things won't go my way, I get used to it.'
'......'
'I carry my full portion, and everyone else usually shaves it down.'
'You little— Do Jaeyeon warns you constantly not to run that mouth, and you still—'
'Ah, hear me out to the end. But every once in a great while, someone actually does better than my right answer. I do my full portion, and they chip in, what, 0.2 or so—'
'So 1.2 portions?'
'Anyway—sometimes the result comes out better than what I'd imagined. Really rarely...... it happens. Maybe it happens to you too, hyung.'
It was an unexpected answer. Shin Jiwon had wanted to keep talking, but Heeyoon told him to read the script some more and put him to work at his own favorite pastime. Exactly as Director An Jiseong had said—it felt like walking a border collie. An endless walk, its labor divided among every actor and crew member on set.
And from that walk, this devious little border collie always came back having dug up a box full of gold. How was anyone supposed to stop him?
The shoot resumed.
An executive—presumably a senior one—from the OTT side stood watching the set through the thinning curtain of rain.
(Seong-woon realizes that the wound—the one that will lead to death—is beyond his power to heal. Despairing, he still does not stop treating it.)
[Eun-ha: (startled) It doesn't hurt!]
[Seong-woon: Really?]
[Eun-ha: Mm. See? My big brother's better at this than the cult leader.]
[Seong-woon: (with a strained smile) Once I treat this wound, I'll fix your eyes too. You'll see again. All of it.]
[Seong-woon (V.O.): I know. My power cannot save Eun-ha from dying. All I can do is dull the pain, and give him back his sight for a little while. Because I was late. Because I found out far, far too late.]
(Seong-woon finally stops treating the wound and lays his hands over Eun-ha's eyes. A powerful healing ability slowly restores Eun-ha's vision.)
[Seong-woon: I will get you out of here. I swear it. I'll tear Manyusa down, all of it......]
[Eun-ha: Mm.]
[Seong-woon: I'm sorry it took me so long to do what you told me. But it's not too late. Not yet. Let's go see the snow. Together.]
(The rain stops, and falling petals drift down like snow.)
[Eun-ha: (through a blurred haze of sight) Is it snowing?]
[Seong-woon: (watching the petals) Yeah. It's snowing.]
[Eun-ha: I've never seen snow before.]
(Eun-ha reaches out a hand to touch it. Slowly, he closes his eyes.)
[Eun-ha: So snow is soft.]
[Seong-woon: Eun-ha. Don't close your eyes. Just— just wait. I'll show you what's outside Manyusa. I promise, I'll......]
(Seong-woon realizes Eun-ha is dead, and the words die in his throat. He wails. Then he rises from the drift of petals and glares at Manyusa.)
The rain began to fall as snow, at a timing that could only be called miraculous.
The script called for a mound of fallen petals, and Director An Jiseong decided it was worth a conversation with Writer Choi Yujin. The scene was far too beautiful to bury under CG.
He had just given the cut sign and was lost in thought when Shin Jiwon came up beside him and asked, “How did it look?”
“Jiwon. It was...... it came out. It really came out.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Really. It really, really came out.”
Monitoring began, and Lee Heeyoon—pretending not to hear the Leader Actors staff shouting at him to get in a car immediately before he collapsed—came and stood beside them too. That company really did take on the most impossible burdens, the director thought. And at the same time, he thought it was nothing short of a miracle that a hopeless outfit like that had somehow managed to snag Lee Heeyoon at all.
Midway through the monitoring, tears came to Shin Jiwon's eyes again, and he sank into a crouch where he stood.
The emotion simply overwhelmed him; he couldn't stay upright. Shin Jiwon had always been slow to process his feelings, and this time the aftershock was worse. He couldn't even bring himself to look directly at Lee Heeyoon standing beside him.
And so, unable to bear it, he broke down sobbing all over again. No one touched him.
Director An Jiseong shot a glance at Lee Heeyoon and, with a tilt of the head to keep Shin Jiwon from hearing, mouthed silently: How was Jiwon-hyung?
All that effort, wasted—Lee Heeyoon answered out loud.
“Jiwon-hyung did about 0.5 of a portion.”
“What did you say, you brat?”
“That's me being extremely generous. I don't trust people that emotional, normally.”
And with that, he spun on his heel and marched off to the car. Director An Jiseong let out an incredulous hah and scowled, while Shin Jiwon lifted his head and wailed even louder.
“He said I did 0.5 of a portion......!”
“......No, why is that what moves you to tears? What is wrong with you two?”
“I was ackn...... acknowledged......”
Having missed the earlier exchange, Director An Jiseong had no idea what was happening and only grew more exasperated. Shin Jiwon, gloriously overcome by his own 0.5 of a portion, was fortunately able to pull himself together comparatively fast.
Since it was my final day of shooting, everyone from our company had shown up on set. The moment I got in the car, Do Jaeyeon smacked me on the back.
“You lunatic! You're actually going to die at this rate!”
I won't. I get to live out my allotted lifespan, exactly.
But I couldn't show anyone those numbers, so for the time being I did as I was scolded and hurried into dry clothes.
I seemed to have come down with a mild case of hypothermia. Changing clothes was too much of a hassle, so I moved at a glacial pace, and CEO Gam Seongbeom and VP Gam Soohan practically bullied me into the fresh set. That was when I heard the Demon's voice.
[I said you wouldn't die. I never guaranteed your health]
[You fragile little human]
[I want a reasonably healthy lifespan, so kindly maintain the body in good working order]
That Demon. Wants a short life and good health at the same time, does it?
[That's what makes me a demon, hehe]
Fair enough. What was I expecting from a demon?
Once my body warmed up, drowsiness set in—and believing that too was a hypothermia symptom, VP Gam Soohan kept chattering at me to keep me awake.
From there we went straight to a hospital, where thankfully there was no frostbite or anything of the sort. Still hypothermia, though.
The shoot ended with me owing my gratitude to a nearby emergency room, and I'd thought we'd parted on an awkward half-goodbye—but that night the actors came to visit.
They descended on my room and raised a merry riot, talking only about whatever they wanted to talk about, and Shin Jiwon burst into tears all over again asking whether he really counted for 0.5 of a portion before leaving. The more I see of him, the odder he seems.
Personality-wise, Shin Jiwon swings wildly—sobbing one minute, laughing the next, an emotional pendulum in full flight. And yet he unfailingly kind, which strikes me as a genuine mystery. At first I assumed it was an act, but watching it persist day after day, I've concluded he's simply a good person.
Unfortunately, I have an allergy to good people, so I doubt I'll ever be able to see that hyung again.
After everyone left, I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but sleep never came, not for a single moment.
Over and over, the scene of my own death replayed behind my eyelids. Shin Jiwon's acting then had been truly magnificent. It was a performance that didn't exist even among my own right answers.
Some imperfect performances, on the rarest of occasions, surpass the perfect ones. I hate admitting it, but it seems to happen sometimes. It's an irony born of the fact that the absolute god of acting isn't the performer persuading—it's the audience being persuaded.
Someday, will I too—
act better than my own right answer?
And if that day comes, how old will I be?
Suddenly, my heart grew impatient.
[......Some people even take the lives of others]
[Even that kind of......]
[You never even pretended to listen before you regressed, but......]
[......Even that possibility]
The Demon muttered something beside me.
It was only when I heard that voice—so unpleasant to my ears—that sleep finally came.