Only I Show Up on Camera

"Holy crap, this is insane."

The students passing through the hallway outside the practice room had stopped dead in their tracks.

Woo Woong-bae was no different.

Lee Heeyoon and Han Jeong-hyeon were performing Hamlet. With no need to hold back for each other's sake, the two of them bore down on their audience with sheer pressure, even on a floor that wasn't a stage.

As someone aspiring to direct, Woong-bae ached with the longing to see that performance on a real stage — with lighting, sound, everything properly in place.

The students who barely managed to come to their ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠senses all pulled out their cameras, but the first to start filming was, as always, Woong-bae — permanently at the ready.

At first, he'd assumed Heeyoon's failure to register Han Jeong-hyeon was simply some bizarre worldview or character setting of his. Anyone would have thought so.

But then he started noticing something strange.

Han Jeong-hyeon was avoiding Lee Heeyoon, too.

The two had crossed paths a number of times, yet both did their utmost to pretend they didn't know each other. Heeyoon, with his packed schedule, missed quite a lot of school — but when Heeyoon was at school, Han Jeong-hyeon wasn't, and when Han Jeong-hyeon was, Heeyoon had vanished.

Two people this famous before they'd even enrolled never once talking at school was, frankly, close to impossible. The school couldn't go a day without mentioning the two of them in the same breath.

One of them avoiding the other was impossible; it only worked because both were doing it. Which meant Han Jeong-hyeon was deliberately steering clear of Lee Heeyoon. No way some pampered rich boy was humoring the act out of the goodness of his heart.

Looking back on it — the Heeyoon he'd known this past year was transparent, inside and out. In good ways and bad. He was hardly the type to invent some elaborate setup like that.

Which meant……

It's real!

A full year in, it finally hit Woong-bae: Lee Heeyoon might actually have contracted with a demon. Think about it — acting chops that absurd couldn't be acquired without selling your soul.

While he was mulling this over, Han Jeong-hyeon walked out of the classroom and tilted his head to look at him.

Woong-bae was the biggest student in the Media Production department — bigger than anyone in the entire acting program, for that matter — and yet Han Jeong-hyeon was nearly eye level with him. He'd never once in his life felt dwarfed by anyone's size, but Han Jeong-hyeon was a little terrifying.

Gathering his courage, Woong-bae smoothed out the heart shriveling in his chest and asked:

"Didst thou also make a pact with the demon?"

Oh, dammit. There it was again. That medieval cadence that slipped out of him whenever he got nervous.

He was still kicking himself when Han Jeong-hyeon answered.

"How'd you know?"

The answer was so obliging it threw him off. Woong-bae replied anyway.

"You just seem like the type who ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠could sell his soul to a demon and still have some left over. Honestly, you seem like you'd take someone else's soul and pawn it off too, without a shred of guilt."

The words came out of him fast and unfiltered.

At that, Han Jeong-hyeon smiled and murmured:

"Sharp as ever, I see."

"What?"

"What did Heeyoon know to end up getting chummy with you?"

"……What the hell are you talking about?"

"Never mind. More importantly — Director Woo. Cast me sometime. You have to."

Han Jeong-hyeon said this, seized Woong-bae's hand without asking, shook it, and walked away. The grip had lasted only a moment, but his hand still throbbed.

A little later, he opened the door and went inside — and found Heeyoon collapsed right where he'd been reading his Hamlet lines. Woong-bae hurriedly shook his shoulder; both his eyes had gone bloodshot, the veins about to burst.

"Your eyeballs look like they're gonna pop out."

"Ugh, that's disgusting."

"You call a man's eyes disgusting, you little—"

Heeyoon shot back, then glanced at the mirror behind him and flinched, swearing under his breath.

"Fucking hell, that's creepy."

He was clearly in no state to hear about Han Jeong-hyeon just then. So they headed home to Wooheonjeong together — during which Heeyoon stayed completely absorbed in the latter half of Hamlet.

He walked the whole way reading it. Woong-bae figured that if he didn't escort him, one of these days the guy would wander into traffic and die. Heeyoon turned one unabsorbed page after another, reading and rereading.

By the time they reached Wooheonjeong, his eyes had more or less returned to normal. The moment Heeyoon set down his bag, Woong-bae asked:

"Did you see Han Jeong-hyeon? You two acted together just now."

Woong-bae's question didn't reach me again. It was obviously about that guy.

He knew I couldn't hear the name, so instead he showed me the footage he'd shot earlier. On screen, I was reading Hamlet — alone.

"Wow. It's just me. We definitely did it together."

That guy's face comes back to me, faintly. So does that razor-sharp acting.

It felt like that performance was jabbing straight into me, again and again. In barely a few lines, it quenched the thirst I'd been carrying around lately, completely.

It seems like that guy did something to hurt me — and though I don't know exactly what it was, I caught myself thinking I wanted to act with him again.

At this point, all I know about him is the face of some villain whose name — and everything else — is a blank. Then again, when you first come to know a stranger, the face is naturally what you see first. Maybe this is just the ordinary way of doing it. Only slower.

And then.

After that, what?

I fell deep into thought. I need to find out what that guy did. I'm fairly certain he wrecked my life somehow, but I don't know what exactly.

Did he hurt the people around me? I'd wonder — but strictly speaking, that part was about money. It was obvious that Mobydick Entertainment, the whale of the film industry, had tried to swallow Leader Actors whole. Something just didn't fit somewhere in the process, and Leader Actors got torn apart. And I was the company's face and its spine.

And I can guarantee you one thing: I would never, ever have agreed to work with strangers in unfamiliar environments.

……Hold on. Doesn't that make me the villain?

I thought about it for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a moment, then shook my head. Sure, I bear a large share of the blame, but not all of it. I stayed loyal to Leader Actors even when CEO Gam Seong-beom sunk his hands into two big films in a row and lost his shirt on both — I was the company's sole moneymaker, sacrificing myself for it. I kept faith. It was that side that didn't.

That villain is clearly my age, so those grown men's money wars would have had nothing to do with him. And more than anything — that guy is an actor.

Not just any actor, either. The actor who understood me better than anyone I've ever worked with. I could tell from a single line of dialogue: that guy and I must have performed together, an enormous, staggering number of times.

Which would mean I made a scene partner that close to me that angry……

Honestly, it happened so often I can't even get a sense of what the situation was. Every actor floating through my head is furious with me. Even the ones I genuinely considered colleagues never contacted me once after I was all but blacklisted from every medium.

Come to think of it, someone did call me right before I died. Was that him, too?

While I was lost in thoughts like that, Woong-bae spoke up.

"Hey. I believe you now."

"Believe what?"

"That you made a contract with a demon."

The one startled by Woong-bae's sudden announcement wasn't me — it was the Demon.

What are you getting shocked about, you little rascal.

I scolded the Demon and turned to Woong-bae, who went on.

"Because it's not just you avoiding him — that Ghost has been steering clear of you, too."

Knowing I couldn't process the guy's name, Woong-bae had started substituting the word "Ghost." And with that, I could actually hear it. A while ago I wouldn't have caught even that much — the thing's outline was definitely inching closer, little by little.

Woong-bae kept going.

"So the Ghost knows too. That you made a demon contract, and that you can't perceive him…… It's kind of scary, honestly."

It would be more than "kind of." Woong-bae was terrified of the unseen. For all that he loved virtually every film ever made, the one genre he flinched from was horror. I'm a coward myself, but Woong-bae was on another level. Not that he avoided horror entirely — we'd barely made it through last year when we watched Hereditary together, and in my opinion, as far as Woong-bae was concerned it might as well count as never having seen it. So we'd agreed to watch it again today.

We sat down talking, parked the bag of popcorn in the microwave, and waited.

Actor Gam I-hyun hadn't just been an actor — he was also a film fanatic of staggering devotion. Wooheonjeong was outfitted with a truly superb system for watching movies.

According to CEO Gam Seong-beom, the old man spent nearly all his time away from ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠acting watching films and dramas. To be able to live in a house steeped in that kind of love for cinema until I came of age — it was the greatest blessing of my life.

I settled into the very sofa where Actor Gam I-hyun used to sit and watch movies, and fired up Hereditary on the big monitor. Woong-bae and I have a rule: for a first viewing, no matter what happens, we never stop the film from beginning to end.

Exactly like a theater — lights off at the start, watch straight through without stopping, lights back on after the credits.

We do it that way for one reason: because that's surely how the film was made to be seen.

But this was our second time with Hereditary, so we had a little more latitude. Woong-bae said:

"There was a scene like that?"

"……At this point, have you ever actually watched a movie?"

We talked our way through the film. Woong-bae got so scared midway through that he nearly induced a full cardiac event, which is why I ended up white-knuckling the popcorn bucket the whole time. Beside me, the Demon kept chiming in.

That damn Demon kept getting misty-eyed while the guy next to me was halfway to a seizure.

I decided I'd probably need to rewatch Hereditary once more — alone this time.

Maybe because I'm so easily distracted, my head was stuffed with other thoughts for the entire film.

My mind drifted back to the "Ghost."

It had been fun. For the first time in ages, I'd acted with my whole body straining — and it had still clicked into place.

And the thought that followed on its heels was about the scripts I'd read at Leader Actors. They were like a center of gravity. Whatever I thought about, everything circled back there.

After acting with the Ghost, I couldn't help it.

I wanted to get back on a set. Fast.

In my head, I sorted through the scripts I'd read and picked out the roles I wanted. I wanted to audition for every last one of them.