The Wolf's Face

I never attended school much, so I knew nothing about the strange dissonance child actors feel between the set and the classroom.

But I had been beaten to within an inch of my life by a cousin who hated seeing me keep working as a child actor, so I understood, at least somewhat, the desire not to stand out. I used to deliberately sabotage my own performances whenever my cousin Lee Sunggyu was on set. Because I knew that applause there meant bruises at home.

Watching Jang Chaerin cry, I thought for a moment about the hospital ceiling I used to stare at.

'He hit me first! I got hit way more!'

Listening to my cousin scream beside me, I learned that no one in this world was coming to help me. I take it for granted now, but back then, that was simply how it was.

Even Ki Ian, with his perpetually wary nature, and Jang Chaerin, with her memory of being ostracized at school, both seemed to have a line they refused to cross. Jang Chaerin especially went quiet whenever acting came up. She tried so hard to keep her acting from drawing anyone's notice. But what could I do? Ours was a profession that only survived by being noticed.

A little later, Jang Chaerin came back from the hallway looking exactly as loud as ever.

She was genuinely deafening during practice. This school was different from what I'd imagined in all sorts of ways. Ki Ian said to me,

"Why do you keep smiling? What's so funny?"

"This is my first time actually attending school. It's not what I imagined."

"What did you imagine?"

"Hmm. In my imagination it was a magnificent black-and-white film. This place feels more like an ugly color film."

I'd always wondered how people felt when the first color films appeared. I suspect it was something like what I felt just now. The sense that it turned out less beautiful than expected—and yet that you could never go back to black and white again.

Anyway, the actors latched onto the word 'ugly' and came at me, dog-piling me like a hamburger getting flattened.

"The face! Nobody touches the face!"

"Relax, we're not touching that. It's Lee Heeyoon's only virtue."

"I have plenty of virtues besides my fa—"

The rest of my sentence was strangled out of me. Those lunatics were disgustingly heavy.

These days everyone at the company was beaming. But busy—unbelievably busy—so every single employee of Leader Actors was out on location, and the office held nothing but one newly hired female staffer.

"Oh, Heeyoon's here?"

"I came to look at the scripts."

"I told you I'd bring them to Wooheonjeong tonight. You didn't have to come."

"I want to read them sooner."

I said my piece and went browsing through the pile of scripts.

These past several days at school had been devoted to rehearsing Boundary for the stage. It was fun, of course. But I knew full well the direction wasn't mine.

I remembered how, around this point in time, scripts had started drying up. It was the period when the number of productions being made had plummeted.

Until recently, you could push a project through with just one of the three—a popular actor, a bankable director, or a proven writer—but lately even projects with a fairly famous actor attached got scrapped the moment a production company judged they wouldn't sell. A recession. Every agency was too busy jockeying for position to do anything else.

It was also an era where even a smash hit didn't guarantee an actor's next casting unless the actor personally became a phenomenon.

In that frozen market, I believed the only thing actors could do was take whatever role came available—lead or bit part—and stack up credits.

So thinking, I picked up a script to read and settled into one of the soundproofed rooms. Through the glass I saw actress Son Jion pass by outside.

She looked to be returning from an audition, and her expression wasn't good. I'd heard Son Jion had been going to every audition she could book lately.

I sat at the desk, glanced over at her gripping her hair in both hands, then stepped out of the soundproof room.

"Noona."

Son Jion turned around. I thought for a second, then gestured for her to follow me into the studio.

I'd ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠spent the whole day watching those brats, wondering what the hell the ones with all the drive and none of the skill actually needed. And somewhere in that, I'd found something to say to Son Jion, with her crippling stage fright. Finally.

Granted, mental health issues are illnesses ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠too, so telling her to check herself into a psychiatric hospital would be the quick and easy route—but I'd learned before regressing that that doesn't work…

Our company didn't have a lot of space, but the spaces reserved for actors were all impeccably set up. One of them was this studio, used for filming audition tapes and the like. To leave a room this enormous standing empty in a company this small was a bold, romantic, and frankly pathetic decision.

Son Jion followed me without a word. Presumably because she owed her agency to me, she seemed willing to do whatever I asked.

Inside the studio, I said to her,

"Turn on your phone camera for me."

Son Jion turned on the camera and handed it over. She was a girl who lived and died by her style, but her phone, like every aspiring celebrity's, was covered in stickers. I propped the phone against the mirror and said,

"You see that thing? The camera."

"……"

"It's on my side."

At my words, Son Jion gave me a sidelong glance. I kept going.

"It's been on my side my whole life. Unlike producers, unlike audiences, it never judges me, never attacks me. The camera is the one thing that loves us. It just waits over there, ready to take in everything we express."

"……"

"That's why acting for the screen feels so much easier than theater. No matter how many people are crowding that room. It doesn't matter if the investors, the director and crew, even your scene partner aren't on your side. Because there's one thing over there that truly is."

"……"

"We were born in an era where the camera exists. Honestly, how blessed are we?"

Film went from black and white to color, from silent to sound.

So where did the camera come from?

I often think of it as a king.

In Shakespeare's day, unauthorized actors were sentenced to flogging. And the scripts written in that era can now be read freely by anyone, performed freely by anyone.

From an age when one performed under a king's license and before the eyes of nobles, to an age when one performs before a camera—the work of the profession called actor has changed astonishingly little.

Except that now we have a steadfast companion called the camera. If an actor has one absolute ally, I believe it's the camera.

From king to camera.

Only the audience meant to witness our acting had changed.

Failing to perform right in front of a live audience does not logically mean you'll fail in front of a camera. That's a leap.

For the entire time I was saying this, Son Jion stared fixedly at the camera. Then, the instant I finished, she said,

"Get out. I'm filming my audition tape."

Come to think of it, Son Jion was never particularly sweet-tempered either.

I knew that perfectly well, so I simply left the studio. And I was back in the soundproof room when I saw Vice President Gam Soohan pacing anxiously outside. I opened the door and he asked,

"How did it go?"

"How did what go?"

"Jion's expression. It completely changed. She was so lacking in confidence it worried me. What did you do?"

At that, I glanced back toward the studio. Through the slightly open blinds I could see Son Jion filming her audition tape. Her face was natural. Unforced.

While I was watching, Do Jaeyeon appeared out of nowhere.

"Hmph. Wouldn't listen to a word I said, but she listens to you."

"I'm sure she took my advice because it was accurate."

"And what, exactly, did I say wrong?"

Do Jaeyeon grumbled. She was the one who'd worried about introverted, high-anxiety Son Jion from the start, so I knew she was grumbling out of pure delight.

They could handle it themselves. I'd lost interest anyway, and I left the future couple fussing over her like a daughter off to college and went back to the soundproof room.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

For some reason, I felt a little stifled.

The reason hit me immediately. Nearly two weeks of directing meant two weeks without any acting of my own.

Granted, I'd been reading the scripts coming into the company, prepping for auditions, and I even had some idol music video shoot scheduled. Above all, the vice president and I had been doing script readings to the point where he had to chug energy drinks daily just to keep his stamina up.

And yet it wasn't enough.

It was probably Shin Jiwon's fault. The energy of acting opposite him. I missed that dopamine.

The first one to quench my thirst for acting with a genuinely skilled partner, right after I regressed, had been actor Gam Ihyun. Gam Ihyun never once left me thirsty—he filled every drop of it. He himself was parched for acting, so the two of us could complete each other perfectly.

But Gam Ihyun was gone, and now that the new experience with Shin Jiwon had ended too, I was dying of thirst. If nobody filled it soon, my old temper was going to start leaking out. Why can't you act? Why can you only express a fraction of what you feel? You call yourself an actor and you can't even memorize one script properly?!

And just as the anger was quietly piling up—

Regular performance practice ended, the students all headed home, and I stayed behind in the practice room. I was checking the script in a corner when the craving to act rose up in me until I couldn't stand it.

So, with no one around, I rose with the script in hand and stood in the middle of the practice room.

I was on, at most. Reading Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2. I had no idea how I'd ever reach Act 5, Scene 2 at this pace, but for now.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes once, opened them—and the room transformed into the space inside the script.

And then, a voice.

Inside Elsinore castle, the King of Denmark, Claudius, appeared. The Demon's voice rang out.

I came face to face with the eighteen-year-old Claudius. That existence I had never once been able to perceive, even for a heartbeat, faintly showed me its face.

A wolf. It was a face that called up exactly that one word.

"We match well, you and I."

As I spoke, Claudius said something. His mouth opened, but nothing carried through, and in an instant Elsinore castle became the shabby, grimy practice room of some high school. The face of the boy my own age who should have been standing there was nowhere to be seen. I spoke toward the place I couldn't see.

"Let's meet often."

Don't hide.

I don't know who he is yet.

But that damned piece of trash who'd been so parched was surely smiling. Because he'd be thinking the exact same thing.