The Rabbit and the Flower Petals
The Boundary team dinner at the cold pork tripe restaurant was lively and loud.
At first, it had been the least popular option of the bunch. It was a relatively unknown play, and its set consisted of nothing more than a single patch of dirt, which struck the students as rather boring.
And yet, in the end, it had claimed first place and seized the slot for the regular performance showcase.
"By the way, Lee Heeyoon's not here."
Everyone had been carefully avoiding the subject, but the remark of one actor drunk on a single glass of cola brought the bustling dinner table to a dead stop.
Just then, Ki I-an, who was supposed to join a little later than everyone else, walked in. He said,
"Oh, right. Lee Heeyoon said a professional director doesn't cut slack for people like he does, so we'd better bring our A-game."
"Ah, that punk."
"Whoa, and that was him going easy on us? He just didn't cuss us out... wait, did he?"
"He didn't. Which is exactly what makes it scarier, no? How does he make you feel like you've been cursed out without ever saying a single bad word?"
At Lee Heeyoon's single line, relayed secondhand, the tripe house grew noisy all over again.
He had told them to just wait and see. That he would put on a play that absolutely finished them off—something close to revenge.
Homeroom teacher Hong Hyeonsang had been relieved by that atmosphere. Each of Lee Heeyoon's words had carried so much weight that it had worried him.
Before taking the stage, Lee Heeyoon had given each and every student tailored advice. Which meant he had been watching every one of those actors, and that he had taken the time to think through, in his own way, what each of them needed.
His natural tone was cynical, so it always grated on the ear. But having watched him direct, it became clear that underneath it all lay a genuine ambition to make this play as good as it could be, and a foundation of serious observation of each individual actor.
Hong Hyeonsang had dreamed of being an actor his whole life, and honestly, he had never imagined he would end up in the business of teaching. But once he started this work, he learned something important.
Kids are fundamentally starved for affection and self-centered. The starvation isn't because they receive too little love—it's that at that age, no amount is ever enough.
Only after finishing his first year with a class did he learn that a single throwaway remark could sometimes plant the seeds of a poison that would crush a teenager's will to live.
And so personalized advice, given moments before stepping on stage and meant for one person alone, could transform an eighteen-year-old actor into someone completely different from who they'd been before.
That was why. That was why the Boundary team had been able, in an instant, to pull in every single person in that grand auditorium with their extraordinary performance. Lee Heeyoon's advice had quenched each individual's thirst.
He'd probably be good at directing too. Good at teaching as well.
Hong Hyeonsang marveled. But then he came to a conclusion.
Then again, he doesn't want to do anything but act.
For all his directing duties, Lee Heeyoon spent every spare moment holed up in a corner practicing his own performance. The more he directed, the more visibly he ached to be acting himself—like a fever he couldn't sweat out.
Lee Heeyoon had said he wouldn't be coming to school for the next month. Perhaps wanting to keep it secret, he told no one what he would be shooting. He didn't even say whether it was a play, a film, or a drama.
It was driving everyone crazy with curiosity.
They wanted to know what he was filming. They wanted to see it.
Lee Heeyoon knew how to draw attention. He also instinctively knew how to be loved.
That Lee Heeyoon would become a remarkable actor was a given. But more than that, Hong Hyeonsang was convinced that he would become a tremendously beloved star.
When I got to the office, there was a doll sitting on the coffee table.
"Why'd you waste money on a doll?"
At my words, CEO Gam Seongbeom replied,
"Ah, this one? It's yours."
"Mine?"
"Yeah. A fan made it. We've checked that there's nothing problematic about it, so take it if you want."
I picked up the doll. It was a rabbit.
"A rabbit, huh."
"The fans designed it and had it custom-made. Hey, we might need to put out official merch someday, so take a good look at it."
"But why a rabbit?"
"Apparently you've got rabbit vibes."
"Since when?"
"Dunno. If the fans say so, you roll with it, you brat."
There was nothing remotely rabbit-like about my face, so why a rabbit?
Come to think of it, I'd never once been called rabbit-like before my regression. But seriously, why a rabbit?
I couldn't figure it out, but judging from what the idol kids at school said, once you debuted you apparently got assigned some animal or other. If none stuck, they said you made one up yourself.
As I was locked in a staring contest with the rabbit doll, Do Jaeyeon, passing by, said,
"That's the thing—it basically IS you."
Huh?
Since I clearly couldn't follow, Do Jaeyeon elaborated.
"It's a character built off you, so it's you."
"Wow, I really can't keep up with people these days."
"You and your deadpan jokes."
CEO Gam Seongbeom, who had been just as lost as I was, chimed in.
"He's had fans growing since Garden of Manyusa, and they keep asking us to do some kind of event. But what would I know about that stuff? Oh, and they want him doing paid fan communication or something—what even is that? Do other actors do it?"
Before my regression, I'd had fans too, of course. Plenty of them. But worn down by the endless stream of vicious rumors about me, I think a great many of them had drifted away.
And yet some fans had stayed.
CEO Gam Seongbeom, and the other two as well, had worked hard planning all sorts of things for me—fan meetings, autograph sessions, that kind of thing. And I turned it all down. I'd believed it had no meaning whatsoever for my career as an actor.
But thinking about it now, it felt almost miraculous that there had been people who loved me even when I'd lived so coldly, pushing everyone away. I wondered if any of the people here had liked me even before the regression. If such a person existed, I finally found myself wanting to repay them somehow.
Looks like I've finally grown up a little.
Then again, after being beaten black and blue surrounded by more than twenty little brats, I suppose I'd started to miss the people who loved me without limit.
I looked at the doll for a while, then said to Do Jaeyeon,
"Noona, take a photo of me."
"What's this? So you can post it?"
"I'm going to post it."
"Well, that's a first for you."
"I'm grateful, you know."
"...You know what gratitude is?"
Great. Anyone listening would think I was a sociopath.
Do Jaeyeon, thoroughly delighted with me either way, hauled me off to the company studio. Then, declaring that I absolutely could not be photographed against a bare wall, she ran out and came back with balloons and all sorts of party supplies.
After watching me snap a few shots, CEO Gam Seongbeom pulled up some photo references for me.
"I just looked it up—apparently this is how it's done."
"Yeesh."
I cringed, but I told myself this, too, was acting, and took the photos as the references showed. Then I had them approved by Shin Jiwon, the ex-idol. I'd assumed he'd be busy, but the reply came the second I sent the pictures.
Then he shot some example photos himself and sent them back. I copied them exactly. I couldn't tell what was different from the ones before, but Do Jaeyeon, and then every woman from other companies who arrived right after, all declared these were the ones. Once again I marveled at Shin Jiwon's uncanny grasp of what women liked. Posting photos that women enjoy was clearly the right call.
The moment I uploaded the photos I'd taken, the comments came flooding in fast.
There were a lot of crying emojis. And everyone was calling me Eunha, my character from Garden of Manyusa.
I'd always kind of liked this. Being called by your character's name even after the show ends. From an actor's standpoint, I considered it tremendous good fortune.
If a fellow actor calls you by your character's name, it means that actor gave their heart to that role. And if people still call you by your character's name even after watching the drama, that means the same thing—the audience gave their hearts to that role.
I glared at the comments, then said to Do Jaeyeon,
"There's way too little 'you're handsome' in there. I AM extremely handsome. Do I look off today or something?"
"Do NOT go around asking people to call you handsome...... It's not that they're wrong. Still, you know...... Besides, they're only holding back because you're a minor."
"If I'm young, then they should compliment me MORE—call me pretty, call me adorable."
"Adults have adult considerations too, you brat."
Ugh, this is so unfair. I want to be a legal adult already. Once I'm an adult, the range of roles I can play will widen too, presumably.
Anyway, while they didn't call me handsome much, they sure said they loved me a lot. There were plenty of pink hearts. Not a bad sight at all.
"Heeyoon, honestly, you're a different person front and back."
CEO Gam Seongbeom said this while driving. Vice President Gam Soohan looked at me in the back seat and added,
"The doll is cute, though."
"No, but a second ago it was a waste of money. That punk was the same when we went to the amusement park. Whining, 'Why are we even going to an amusement park?' And then he had the time of his life."
I tried to ignore the two old men teasing me and put in my earphones. Then I gave a few pats to the head of the rabbit doll they'd seated beside me.
The doll was dressed in the clothes Eunha had worn. Shin Jiwon had told me a fan had made that outfit by hand. Amazing.
And so, with the doll in tow, I arrived at the film set. I'd been going to the set since the very first day of shooting, but after waiting around for over three days with nothing to do, I went home. Vice President Gam Soohan, who'd been director Ju-eun Schepper's classmate, apologized as if it were somehow his fault, and explained that that director had always shot her films with absolutely no plan whatsoever.
"I'm sorry. The makeup alone takes six hours each time......"
Because I was playing a grotesque creature, I needed special effects makeup. They said they'd add CG work on top of it later.
Frankly, waiting is just an actor's daily bread, so it didn't bother me much. It was only three days, after all. Before my regression, I'd once waited around like that only to have my scenes axed from the film entirely. Even that, well—nothing to be done about it.
Best of all, it happened to be cherry blossom season, and blossoms bloomed in every direction. Watching the cherry blossoms a little, passing out a few times while reading Hamlet, and a day would slip by. Thanks to the time I'd been given, I'd read quite a lot of Hamlet.
And then, on the fourth day.
The assistant director finally came to fetch me.
"Actor Heeyoon. Standby, please."
On the fourth day, I finally stepped out of the car. It had rained during those four days, and the cherry blossoms had been strewn across the ground, laying down a road of petals.
Do Yeo-jin, who had shot almost every scene over the past three days, was worn down to the absolute bone. Our eyes met.
Looking at her, I thought of the pink hearts the fans had written in their comments. There are many kinds of love in this world.
In that very instant, I knew with absolute certainty that I was about to learn one of those forms of love on this film set.