Heeyoon Doesn't Know Hamlet
After a little over a month of shooting in the mountains, I came back to Seoul. Less than half the filming was done, yet heading home early like this felt exactly like leaving school before the final bell — and leaving school early had never once felt good to me.
The moment I returned to Seoul, another circus was in full swing. My uncle had shown up at the agency the moment he heard I'd been cast in a drama by Choi Yu-jin, the hottest screenwriter in the country. I wanted to become an adult as fast as possible — so that I wouldn't need a legal guardian of any kind.
They said the drama would air in February, as scheduled.
If this drama hit big, he'd latch on with a straw and suck until there was nothing left. He'd try something before I turned nineteen, no doubt about it. In my past life, I remembered him shoving me into one event after another, desperate to squeeze out quick money.
Well — fine, let him latch on, as long as he didn't interfere with my acting career. I intended to act as much as humanly possible, so I was extremely busy.
Somewhere along the way, I turned eighteen.
I'd barely eaten during this shoot, but my growth refused to stop. In my previous life I'd only barely cleared 180 centimeters, and that had been around twenty-one. Judging by the rate I was shooting up this time, I was on track to grow past that.
So there I was, growing like a weed, obviously healthy to anyone who looked at me — and yet at the agency, people treated me like I was liable to keel over at any moment. All because of that one time I'd collapsed after wandering off to the next room over.
Then, in January, came the production press conference. The moment the actors I hadn't seen in a while laid eyes on me, they recoiled in shock.
"What are you, a bean sprout? How did you grow this fast?"
"That's not growth, that's evolution……."
The one most fascinated by me was Shin Ji-won. He kneaded my face like dough and said, "In the winter you looked like one of those kids from the graduation album nobody remembers……"
"I'm not that forgettable."
"No, really. You're like a ghost."
"Ah. Stop with the horror-movie bit — and stop pinching my face."
"Thank God your baby fat's still there, at least."
These crazy adults kept squishing my cheeks while claiming, with their words at least, that I was a grown man now.
Once the press conference began, talk drifted from one set anecdote to another. Since the broadcast revolved around the two leads, I just sat quietly off to the side. Shin Ji-won, a natural variety-show performer, carried the event with bright, effortless energy.
After a long stretch of stories about the leads, my turn finally came. The director spoke up.
"Actor Lee Hee-yoon is completely different from when we were filming. Back then he was this tiny little thing, honestly. He's grown a full span since."
He was shamelessly telling a room full of reporters that I'd grown thirty centimeters in two months. Everyone exaggerates way too much.
Still, Do Jaeyeon had drilled into me that when adults were all singing the same tune, I was to shut my mouth and sit still — so I sat still. The other actors chimed in one by one.
"During filming he was so lovely I thought he might just melt away and vanish. How on earth did he become this young man in the meantime? Oh, of course I only mean compared to back then — he's still baby-faced for his age."
"Seriously handsome. That kid is going to make it, no question. First of all, he can just act."
And so, after a round of praise and growth talk, my segment ended.
Then the reporters began firing off questions. With several coming in at once, the seasoned moderator neatly repackaged them for me.
"Let's start with whether your seniors took good care of you — and if so, who looked after you the most?"
"Everyone was wonderful to me."
"Through this production, was there a senior who especially helped you grow as an actor? And if so, in what way?"
I looked down the row of seniors and answered.
"Ji-won hyung."
"Me?"
Shin Ji-won blinked at me in surprise. I nodded.
"He kept running lines with me."
The director jumped in. "Wow, Heeyoon is seriously relentless. He wandered around the set like some mountain spirit clutching his script, hunting for anyone who'd read with him. And Ji-won here did it every single time."
"His nickname on set was Border Collie. Like a border collie begging for a walk — the kid just never runs out of energy."
Shin Ji-won, ever the variety veteran, played along seamlessly.
"Hey, I got a lot out of it too, honestly."
With him steering things like that, the press conference wrapped up smoothly and easily.
The truth is, I hadn't remembered Shin Ji-won all that clearly from before my regression. From what I recalled, he hadn't acted much after his military service — he'd done far more variety shows.
What could have happened to make a man who loved reading scripts that much — a man who had, after all, been the lead of a genuine hit — decide that acting wasn't his path? I could only guess that it came down to Shin Ji-won's inconsistency as a performer.
Well. It wasn't my job to run his life, and I had no intention of coaxing him back into acting.
"……What a waste, though."
So — my brain reasoned logically, and my mouth blurted out my honest feelings. How did this broken character setting come to be, exactly? Was it that demon's fault?
[Oh, so now I'M the one to blame?]
The voice of a slandered demon popped out of nowhere.
At my muttering, Shin Ji-won — who had been busy beside me, patiently convincing the seniors to film the simplest possible short-form clips — turned around.
"Hmm? What was that?"
"I said it's a waste, you doing so many variety shows, hyung."
"Because I should be acting?"
"Yes."
Whoa. Hold on. What was that? I'm a rational person — it's like I briefly malfunctioned. At my words, Shin Ji-won laughed.
"Got it. I'll think about it."
He'd think about it, and then he wouldn't listen. So I said it one more time.
"There are things I want to learn from you, you know."
"……From me?"
"Though obviously there's more you should be learning from me."
At that, Shin Ji-won furrowed his brow — a rare sight — and then promptly broke back into his easy, good-natured smile.
Shin Ji-won had the face of a fundamentally good man, the kind that made anyone trust him instantly. That part was inborn.
It was that very face that had convinced the production company he could play both sides: the obedient, brainwashed member of a cult — and the man who realizes it's wrong and risks everything to tear it down.
It had been perfect casting, and I agreed with that assessment wholeheartedly.
"Let's meet again."
That was how Shin Ji-won answered.
A more positive reply than a vague promise to "think about it."
Two weeks before the airdate, in mid-February, I decided to start going back to school.
At my school, "vacation" was a joke. Vacation was, if anything, the season of extra assignments and extra acting. When I'd enrolled last year, the graduating class had put on a welcome play for the new students. And it was in second year — the most important of the three years at this school — that preparations began for the fall regular performance. I had no intention of missing the start of it.
Early in the morning, CEO Gam Seong-beom and Do Jaeyeon arrived at Wooheonjeong. Do Jaeyeon handed me my school uniform, freshly dry-cleaned and pressed.
"You really are a strange one. Most people don't decide to go back to school right before their big drama premieres."
"There's the regular performance. I can't afford to miss it from day one."
"Watch your mouth, punk, your sentences keep getting shorter and shorter."
Then CEO Gam Seong-beom chimed in.
"He talks to me like that too. If that kid becomes a star, we're in serious trouble."
Even before my regression, I'd dropped formal speech with everyone. Their fault, really. Ever since I'd become Leader Actors' main source of income, they'd let me do whatever I wanted.
I changed into the uniform. My school's uniform was genuinely expensive, and thanks to my growth spurts I kept having to buy new ones. Fortunately, CEO Gam Seong-beom told me, his father — the late actor Gam I-hyun — had written into his will that everything I needed for school was to be provided for me.
CEO Gam Seong-beom said, "Your tuition, uniforms, even your allowance — Father wrote it all down generously in his will, so don't skimp. Eat whatever you want."
"I will."
"There he goes again, all slick answers. Stop watching movies and go buy yourself some actual food."
"Fine, fine."
Unbelievable. Telling an actor to stop watching movies. I'd let that one slide right past me.
Still, it seemed actor Gam I-hyun had written a remarkably detailed will about me before he died. Curiosity suddenly got the better of me, and I asked CEO Gam Seong-beom about it.
"Is there nothing in the will about acting? Like, something about teaching me?"
Do Jaeyeon cut in, bristling. "No, there isn't. Hey — you were the person who talked acting with Gam I-hyun the teacher more than anyone before he passed. Madam Seon-young and the CEO even gave the two of you space on purpose, and you're the one getting greedy?"
"Teacher Seon-young" meant Park Seon-young, actor Gam I-hyun's widow. She still called me every week and constantly sent over homemade side dishes. Thanks to her, I ate well and slept well. It was a life I couldn't have imagined before my regression. I owed her real filial devotion.
And so, absorbing their scolding — and their fussing over how I absolutely had to eat breakfast on my first morning of my first day back — I finished getting ready for school. A warm meal in my stomach really did make the cold feel bearable.
After Lee Hee-yoon left for school, Do Jaeyeon let out a long sigh and turned to CEO Gam Seong-beom.
"Is it just me, or am I the only one terrified? No wait — the kid has a major drama about to premiere and he's not nervous at all. Why?"
"Beats me…… Is it boldness, or does he just not feel anything?"
"And here's another weird thing he's been doing lately. He keeps grabbing our phones and leaving photos of himself on them."
He'd done it again today, in fact.
Standing in front of a beautifully set breakfast table, Lee Hee-yoon — who in his entire life had never once voluntarily taken a photo — picked up Do Jaeyeon's and CEO Gam Seong-beom's phones in turn and left behind pictures of himself posing with the meal. Beaming, no less.
"And every single time he takes one, he smiles like that. It gives me chills."
"Jaeyeon, come on. That's our actor you're talking about — you can't say his smiling gives you chills."
"He never smiles any other time!"
"Well, if he smiles for photos, that's a good thing…… Though taking them on other people's phones is a little odd, I'll admit."
Really, when it came to Lee Hee-yoon, the strange parts numbered far more than one or two. Do Jaeyeon grumbled on and on with her mouth, but her eyes and hands were busy scrolling through the photos on the phone, picking out the good ones.
"I mean — he really is growing up beautifully, though."
The moment she spotted an opening to brag about her own actor, CEO Gam Seong-beom melted into a slack, gooey grin.
"Right? Kya — that face, and I mean, that face."
"Ugh, he was cocky enough already, he's just going to get worse. How does this kid have a single flaw on that face? Ah, we should be saving as much of it to the big screen as we can, but he has to go to school too. We can't exactly clone him."
And so, as always, the two of them showered Lee Hee-yoon's face with lavish praise only in his absence — until Do Jaeyeon came to her senses first.
"Oh, but seriously — did Gam I-hyun the teacher really leave something for Heeyoon? Acting advice, anything like that?"
"He said if there was any script here that Heeyoon wanted, to give it to him. And then there's one line that's a little… odd. He was quite sick toward the end, so…… maybe his mind wasn't fully with him."
"What did it say?"
"It's… hmm."
CEO Gam Seong-beom fudged around for a moment, wearing the face of a man nearly certain his father had simply made a mistake, and finally spoke.
"He wrote that Heeyoon doesn't know Hamlet."
"……What does that even mean?"
"I don't know. What any of it means."
"The kid is a Shakespeare specialist. He probably has Hamlet memorized down to the last comma. What exactly is he saying Heeyoon doesn't know?"
"That's what I keep telling you — I don't know. He was in such poor health. He must have gotten momentarily confused about something."
And so the two of them chalked the incomprehensible line up to Gam I-hyun's illness and let it go — but somewhere deep down, it didn't sit right with either of them.
CEO Gam Seong-beom grumbled, convinced it was still nonsense no matter how you looked at it.
"No. Seriously, no. Under what possible circumstances does anyone end up saying Lee Hee-yoon doesn't know Hamlet?"