The Question I Will Ask
Even after Lee Heeyoon left, Ju-eun Schepper and Do Yeojin still couldn't say a word. They were supposed to move on to the next round of auditions, but both of them needed time, so they took a full ten-minute break.
Do Yeojin spoke first.
"I saw that play back in college, you know. Voyage of Evil."
"We saw it together."
"He was better than the professionals I've seen."
"Honestly, there's no comparison……"
"That guy's a freaking lunatic."
"He is……"
When Do Yeojin cursed, Ju-eun Schepper actually nodded along comfortably, feeling as if she'd been thrown back to their college days. Do Yeojin was right. Lee Heeyoon was a lunatic.
As it happened, a play of Voyage of Evil was running at a small theater near the audition venue. Curious, they had looked it up, and the lead actor's profile said he was a student at the same school as Lee Heeyoon.
"So there's a lead from the same school. Ah, no wonder he was so good."
"The two of them must have practiced together."
Only after drawing that conclusion did their hearts settle a little. Honestly, looking at nothing but Lee Heeyoon's acting, they'd both thought, we're in trouble. It felt like they had brushed against something forbidden — a line that, once touched, could never be taken back. Neither of them had the confidence to guide an actor like that.
But if a student from the same school was performing in the same play, they could at least console themselves with the faintest, thinnest sliver of an explanation.
There were a few more candidates who auditioned after that, but honestly, none of it registered — not with their eyes, not with their ears.
When the auditions finally wrapped up, Do Yeojin and Ju-eun Schepper were both so drained that they laid a mat out on the floor and flopped onto their backs. Do Yeojin said,
"Lying around like this reminds me of how often we did this back at school."
"Uh, no, you were the one lying around. We were the ones making fun of you for doing it every single day."
"Ugh, you remember that way too vividly."
"I still can't believe those idiots are still in the industry."
"I love it, though. We're still young, still in our prime. Those kids earlier — it's not just Heeyoon's generation that has a bright future ahead of it."
With that, Do Yeojin pushed herself up to a sitting position and went on.
"You know what my favorite thing about this industry is?"
"What."
"People here have no sense of age."
Do Yeojin continued, her face suggesting this was the most natural thing in the world.
"I don't mean people get confused about how old they actually are. It's just — in other industries, once you hit your mid-thirties, people stop really sketching out a future for themselves, right? I'm not talking about retirement. People just get cynical."
"Fair enough, at that age."
"But people who make movies? Mid-thirties, so what? They're talking about the future at sixty."
It was such an apt observation that Ju-eun Schepper burst out snickering the moment she heard it. Do Yeojin went on.
"They'll say, I'm going to make this kind of film someday. They hoard scripts they plan to shoot when better technology comes along in ten years. At eighty, if they've still got the strength, they're doing the same thing. One of them just told me he's starting a new project. The whole industry is like that. Me included — I'll play a mother, then a grandmother. They imagine that far into the future."
"So you're saying you like how unrealistic it is?"
"No. I like…… the fact that people keep wanting to make things. They curse each other out, they get on each other's nerves, they bluster about how the moment they finish this one project, they'll finally make it big — and still, as long as they have the strength to stand up and sit back down, they're thinking about the next film."
"……"
"That sense of a far-off future, it's really…… People turn their own lives into a movie, you know? That's what I love most about it."
Ju-eun Schepper listened quietly as Do Yeojin spoke. She thought about it for a moment, then nodded.
"Yeah. Now that I think about it, I love that about it too."
The moment Vice President Gam Soohan met up with me, he said he wanted to at least buy his old classmates a meal and headed back to the audition venue with me. Then, in front of the still-open door, he stopped short at the sight of the two women sprawled on the mat.
I was about to just call out to them, but Gam Soohan shook his head and mouthed the words, let's just go.
Just then, the two of them began to talk. I grabbed Gam Soohan's arm as he tried to leave. Do Yeojin was asking what her favorite thing about this industry was, and I wanted to know the answer.
And so, pressing my back against the wall where I wouldn't be caught, I listened to Do Yeojin's favorite thing all the way to the end.
'That sense of a far-off future, it's really…… People turn their own lives into a movie, you know? That's what I love most about it.'
I had never once thought about it that way, but after hearing Do Yeojin say it out loud, it felt true. The fact was, I had never set foot outside this industry, so I'd never even thought to question filming schedules that stretched that far into the future.
Unable to call the two of them out, Gam Soohan headed with me to a gopchang restaurant nearby instead. There was a small theater close by, and the restaurant's walls were plastered edge to edge with play posters.
Gam Soohan said,
"I did a play at that small theater myself, once. Nobody had any money back then, you know. So we'd come here eight at a time, order two portions between us, and just keep drinking."
"You, sir?"
"Yeah."
Granted, he still likes his liquor, but I had never once seen Gam Soohan drink even half of what he could supposedly hold.
He ordered the assorted gopchang platter — the one dish he'd claimed he could never stomach as a student — and busily piled my plate full.
Before my regression, I hadn't eaten jokbal, and of course I hadn't eaten gopchang either. Anything that looked strange, I generally avoided.
But after I regressed, I indulged Leader Actors' obsessive jokbal habit, and now they'd started assuming I'd naturally eat gopchang too.
Having resolved to share in whatever those people ate, I'd reluctantly started eating gopchang not long ago. I still couldn't quite tell what it tasted like, but the three of them at Leader Actors liked it, so I simply kept eating it.
Gam Soohan said,
"You heard what Yeojin was saying, right? This industry is that kind of industry. Don't talk about funerals anymore."
"I won't."
"Come to think of it, last year, when Big Uncle…… I mean, when actor Gam I-hyun passed away, I did wonder if you were saying that because it shook you up so badly."
"It's not that."
"Then why bring up funerals out of nowhere? You startled me."
Gam Soohan grumbled. Merely from having it mentioned, the topic had taken up residence in his heart like that.
[Oh, so things'll go nuts when you die]
[There ARE ways to extend your lifespan, you know]
[Go steal somebody else's lifespan]
[I'll even give you an easy quest]
The Demon had started chiming in.
'Get lost,' I said to myself.
Just then, as Gam Soohan was picking out only the perfectly browned pieces of gopchang and setting them on my plate, his phone rang. It was Director Ju-eun Schepper.
"Yes? Ah…… yes. Really? Yes, I'll ask him. Mm-hm. Okay. Thank you."
When he hung up, Gam Soohan's face was beaming.
"They weren't planning to cast you, but they said they couldn't help it. You act too well."
"Of course I do."
"Whew, I was so nervous."
"Why would you be nervous? Of course they were going to cast me."
I found it genuinely strange that Gam Soohan was surprised by the outcome.
The conchi — the cheese-covered corn side dish that came with the gopchang — was tastier than the gopchang itself, so I focused on eating that. As I did, Gam Soohan said,
"Ah, right. Director Schepper was curious about something. Voyage of Evil."
The rest of his sentence never reached me. And thanks to that, I finally understood why I had decided, of all things, to perform Voyage of Evil.
That damned Claudius was doing Voyage of Evil. When a school's student was putting on a play or anything else, it was common practice to pin the promotion to the school's name and advertise. Voyage of Evil must have been promoted that way too, and I must have seen it without consciously registering it.
But I had definitely seen it — enough that something like an afterimage remained, and subconsciously, I had decided to perform that play.
His follow-up question, I guessed, must have been whether I'd chosen Voyage of Evil after seeing that bastard's play — the one I couldn't even remember seeing. I nodded along vaguely.
"That's right. Because he was in it."
"I knew it. They said you were terrifyingly good."
I like compliments, but even as Gam Soohan relayed Ju-eun Schepper's praise, another thought was running through my head.
I wanted to see that bastard's play. I was curious. If I went to watch, would I see that bastard in the middle of his performance? Or would I see everything but him?
Or, if neither — maybe I'd see nothing at all.
Either way, I had to know. I said,
"I want to see Voyage of Evil."
"Yeah?"
With that, Gam Soohan turned around to look behind him. All I saw was a wall, but Gam Soohan read a schedule off of it. Apparently the play that bastard was in was posted there.
Gam Soohan said,
"Too bad. It ended a few days ago."
"Oh, that's fine."
I said it and went back to my gopchang. Then I told Gam Soohan,
"I'm going to take a walk after I eat and grab a taxi home. Have a drink, hyung."
"No, I'll walk with you. If being around your manager bothers you, I can wait in the car."
"Hyung, I've already passed the age where I can't go anywhere alone — I'm famous enough now that I should have a manager tailing me everywhere."
When I cut it off that bluntly, Gam Soohan made a strangely regretful face. It seemed he was a little sad that I'd reached that age already.
I pulled a bottle of soju from the liquor fridge — the one my eyes had kept drifting to despite myself — and set it down in front of him. The audition was over, and with good news to celebrate, Gam Soohan cracked the bottle open. He savored three chilled shots, then left the rest of the bottle untouched.
After Gam Soohan left in his taxi, I headed for the nearest small theater.
About fifteen minutes on foot, I stopped in front of it. Stepping through the open door, I found a small courtyard, with one staircase leading down and another leading up.
On my own whim, I took the stairs down. Pure curiosity. At the bottom was a small stage. The company seemed to be rehearsing something else — strips of glow tape were laid across the floor. One man, busily rubbing the tape to bring its glow back to life, looked up.
"Can I help you?"
"No play tonight?"
"No, sir. Nothing today. Would you like a brochure?"
The man stood up as if he couldn't afford to lose a single customer, and handed me a pamphlet listing the small theater's schedule.
I said,
"I wanted to see Voyage of Evil."
The man replied,
"Ah, that one. ……The acting was really something. Word of mouth brought you here, I take it."
I had told him we'd see each other often, but that bastard hadn't shown himself before me properly, and so there was precious little to see. Again and again, all I got were the traces he left behind.
That bastard would be the key to remembering why my family — Gam Seongbeom, Gam Soohan, Do Jaeyeon — had all vanished, one and all. That must be why he never appeared in front of me.
The next time I meet that bastard, there is only one thing I will ask him.
Did you kill them?