A Surge of Greed

A survival competition at school — what a bizarre concept. We truly are a nation of survival shows.

The absurd part was that news of this survival format apparently struck such a deep chord in the Korean psyche that even students with agencies were being told by their companies to throw themselves into the regular performance. That was how much attention this survival-style showcase had managed to drum up across the industry. In an era where production slates had shrunk to half their former size, it was one of those just-try-something attempts at keeping the lights on.

The theater was already booked, and only one team out of three productions would get to take the stage. The school had prepared a rather amusing event to divide everyone into the three groups: first they would elect the three team leaders, then students would earn their way onto a team through athletic games and talent shows.

I got sorted into a team too. The Demon had been chattering nonstop beside me the whole time.

[Are you serious right now?]

[You're not going to act?]

'How am I supposed to match these kids' level? It'd look like I'm acting alone.'

[Wow, imagine if the other students could hear what's going through your head right now...]

[No, that's not even the point!]

[Act! Act, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I'm begging you! Why else do you think I've been glued to an actor's side all this time? I want to watch you perform!]

I almost missed the days when he played the part of a proper system. Now that he'd started snapping at me from right beside my ear, my head was starting to ache.

Ignoring the Demon's protests entirely, I joined the theater team I'd chosen on the basis of 'which one I'd most want to direct.' The students had been deeply wary of me at first, but once they realized I had zero interest in the acting roles, they were quite ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠content to have me around.

I went into a play called Boundary. The story began when two farmers jointly tilling their shared land dug up a treasure chest — one presumed to have been buried there by pirates long ago.

One of the other productions was an adaptation of Sherlock Holmes, and the last was an adaptation of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard. Both of those demanded big laughs, and since ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I was about as far from quick-witted comedy as a person could get, I'd ruled them out from the start.

That said, judging by how vaguely I could perceive the Sherlock Holmes team, that bastard was probably on it. One thing was certain: because I kept reading Hamlet even while flat on my back, I was starting to register his presence — physically, if only by the thinnest margins.

Anyway, I had already read the scripts of all three productions twice over. But most of the students had wanted Boundary the least, so plenty of my teammates were reading it for the very first time.

Each team had been assigned one teacher to serve as director and advisor, and ours was the type who left everything in our hands as much as possible.

"Heeyoon, you take charge of the overall production."

"Yes, sir."

And so I found myself leading the directing staff, on the receiving end of a favoritism so blatant it was almost comical. No one else knew Boundary nearly as well as I did, so not a single soul thought to object.

Thank God The Garden of Manyusa had done as well as it did. A hit drama couldn't certify anyone's acting ability, but it was unmistakably a credential anyone would have to acknowledge.

Casting had been left entirely to us as well, which meant my judgment would carry that much more weight when the time came.

We arranged ourselves in a circle and began reading through the script again. Whoever wanted to read would go as far as they liked, then raise a hand, and the next person would take over. Each time, the teacher would interject once.

"I'd love it if someone could read it with a little more honest emotion."

When two students raised their hands at once, both would read the part before we moved on.

Teenagers whose emotions were normally middling and all over the place became even more unstable the moment they started reading from a script.

For the first time in a long while, I was glad to be at school. I'd never done anything like this before. I was enjoying it so much I nearly laughed out loud. Of course, the kids acted atrociously. But nobody here was paying them, and they were in the middle of learning — it wasn't anything worth chewing them out over.

That didn't mean I planned to go easy on them. Quite the opposite: there would never again be an opportunity for explosive growth like this one, free of any paycheck tying my hands.

Lee Heeyoon had always been a strange one. His personality, for that matter, was anything but ordinary. At least, that was what Ki I-an thought — and Ki I-an had followed Lee Heeyoon into the Boundary team precisely because of it.

Cold was the one word for it. He had the face of an angel, clearly, but nothing about him looked kind. Just recently, one of the acting students had been writing a short script with Lee Heeyoon as the model: a judge who had lived so long that he'd lost interest in both good and evil.

And yet he wasn't so discourteous as to sit there grinning while other people acted — at least, not the way he was now.

This year's acting class had a fair number of former child actors. Ki I-an and Jang Chae-rin were two of them. Feeling the natural solidarity of people who'd grown up on set, the two had planned to get close to each other first, then find their way closer to Lee Heeyoon. But Lee Heeyoon preferred an extremely narrow circle of people and went everywhere with Woo Woongbae of the Media Production / Film Department and no one else.

Just like Han Jeonghyeon, word of how well he'd acted during admissions had spread from day one. The teachers brought up Lee Heeyoon and Han Jeonghyeon at every turn. With Han Jeonghyeon, everyone knew he'd been born with a diamond spoon from the same industry — envy was out of the question. But with Lee Heeyoon, everyone wanted to see for themselves just how good he really was, and they were all lying in wait.

Then, when the class performed The Seagull last year — the play he'd supposedly done for his admissions — Lee Heeyoon delivered something from an entirely different dimension. There was no comparing him to the average student, and pit him against professional adult actors, and he still looked like he had no equals.

His luck was good, too. He'd landed a drama role, and that drama had now held the number one spot on OTT for nearly two months running.

Maybe that was why. Among the twenty-six students here, it was only natural that Lee Heeyoon held the loudest voice. The problem was that the person with the loudest voice also had the worst manners in the room. Which was why Ki I-an — one of the few on decent terms with him — was reading the script while quietly worrying that Lee Heeyoon might cause an incident.

Truthfully, Ki I-an was worried about Jang Chae-rin too. The handful of child-actor friends he had were all, without exception, a little off. Jang Chae-rin had marked up her script in advance and taken a whole page of notes, waiting for her chosen character to come up.

"......"

The funny thing was that, for all that preparation, she sat there frozen, terrified that someone might look her way. Ki I-an understood perfectly why Jang Chae-rin couldn't raise her hand. He wasn't in quite as deep as she was, but he had his own version of the same issue — which only made it easier to recognize.

In a word: Jang Chae-rin hated sticking her neck out. How someone who hated drawing attention to herself planned to make a living as an actress was beyond him, but she hated it all the same.

He'd heard through the grapevine that she'd been severely ostracized throughout her last years of elementary school.

Granted, her taste itself genuinely did run toward the truly bizarre, but Ki I-an suspected that old wound had shaped her too.

Ki I-an raised his hand partway through and read his part, and Lee Heeyoon said:

"Hey. Read it faster."

"Huh?"

"I said read it faster."

"I am reading fast."

"No, you're not."

"Yes, I am."

"Ooh, there. Read it in that tone."

"......"

After working him up like that, Lee Heeyoon glanced down at his own script and went on. Ki I-an read his lines again — fast this time.

A hot surge of anger rose in his chest.

As he had been all last year, Lee Heeyoon was right on both counts. Ki I-an had been reading in a tone he never used in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠daily life, so Lee Heeyoon had been right to tell him to return to his natural voice — and he'd been right about the pacing too.

Lee Heeyoon kept reading the script, tossing out a remark to this student or that one along the way. And at last, they reached the passage Jang Chae-rin had marked.

When Jang Chae-rin raised her hand as if marching into battle, the teacher said:

"Oh — Chae-rin, you were here?"

"I've been here from the very start!"

She said it with such winsome charm, in such a lovely clear voice, and lifted her script. The role Jang Chae-rin wanted was the tax collector who came to assess the levy.

With that single revelation, Yuri and Ivan learned that the fortune they stood to gain had just been cut in half.

The tax collector delivered her one piece of information and left — hardly a pivotal role. Jang Chae-rin clearly wanted to act, but wanted nothing to do with an important part.

When she finished her line, Jang Chae-rin stole a glance at Lee Heeyoon. She was dying to know whether she'd get a comment. It wasn't just her — the whole room was waiting on Lee Heeyoon's remarks.

And no wonder. For all that Lee Heeyoon seemed indifferent to the affairs of the world, he knew the particular traits of nearly every actor in that room. Ki I-an's nervous tension, the shifting rhythms of the other students' breathing — he caught them all with uncanny precision.

But there was no comment for Jang Chae-rin. She poked him.

"Hey. Nothing to say to me?"

At that, Lee Heeyoon looked up from the script for the first time in ages and met her eyes.

"Nope."

"You gave everyone else notes."

"Yeah."

"What about me?"

"You, well... there's nothing to say."

Who knew nothing to say could be such a violent thing to hear?

A chill swept through the practice room, as if someone had hauled in a load of ice. Jang Chae-rin said:

"You're dismissing it because it's a small part?"

"Aren't you the one dismissing it because it's small?"

"Huh?"

"That's how you just played it. Like it wasn't worth a shred of attention."

"......"

"And here I thought you'd chosen the role because you'd discovered some tremendous charm in it."

With that, he went back to his script. The other students all averted their eyes, and Jang Chae-rin — face scarlet — shot to her feet and bolted from the practice room.

Ki I-an shot the teacher a look; the teacher gave a small nod. Ki I-an raced out and found Jang Chae-rin, who was, predictably, in tears.

"Hey, hey. Why are you crying? You didn't know he was like that?"

Jang Chae-rin sobbed like a little kid as she answered.

"I know that's just how Lee Heeyoon is. But he's always right, and it drives me insane. I'm crying because it makes me so mad."

"...Yeah, fair enough."

Normally the pattern went like this: she'd read a single line, someone would gush that she was so pretty she had leading-lady energy, and a few more lines would get quietly tacked onto her part. Jang Chae-rin had always been satisfied with that arrangement.

But Lee Heeyoon had seen straight through to the truth — that she secretly wanted to read far more than that. And that ruthless excuse for a director had scratched her pride raw, in the easiest way imaginable.

So while Ki I-an was busy consoling Jang Chae-rin, Lee Heeyoon — having caught an earful from the teacher — stepped out of the practice room. Then he stopped a good distance down the corridor.

Ki I-an stared at Lee Heeyoon's face in wonder. Even in the middle of all this commotion, it was flawless. Composed. Elegant. Even having just made a girl cry.

Lee Heeyoon spoke.

"I don't know how it is for you two, but when I was going to school, I was the only child actor around. Not that I actually attended much."

Both Jang Chae-rin and Ki I-an froze. Lee Heeyoon went on.

"There's plenty of us now, right? So stick our necks out. Both of you. And if anybody trash-talks us — take each other's side."

With that, he turned and walked back into the practice room.

Jang Chae-rin stood there blankly for a moment, then looked up at the sound of sniffling — and found Ki I-an choking up, tears brimming in his own eyes.

"That's right. Let's stick our necks out, together..."

"Ugh, what is wrong with you. I can't even look at you."

Wrinkling her nose in disgust, Jang Chae-rin headed back to the classroom.

If anybody trash-talks us, take each other's side.

Those words were like a key. And when the storeroom door swung open, what spilled out was an absurd, overflowing hoard of greed.

The greed came flooding all at once.

And suddenly, she wanted the lead.