The Boy Who Couldn't Cry

For the first time in a long while, I'd been in such ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a desperately hopeful state that I'd blanked out for a moment—until Do Yeojin started furiously waving her arm beside me, and I realized my name had been called.

The entire Garden of Manyusa team rose to their feet and cheered. Dazed, I made my way up to the stage.

Since my regression…… strangely enough, I had never once thought about winning an award. Before, in my past life, I remembered asking the Leader Actors people all the time whether this film or that might win me something. It was only as the awards ceremony drew near that the thought had even crossed my mind this time around. And thinking about it now, I could feel it clearly—this life was genuinely, unmistakably different from the last.

For one thing, I had done everything I'd planned to do—my acceptance speech, thanks to the teams I'd filmed with and everyone at the company, to my grandfather, and even to Park Seonyoung. Because I'd prepared, I finished speaking remarkably fast, and a staff member gestured for me to drag it out a little longer with one more word. From far away, I could see the faces of everyone from my company going deathly pale. Apparently, me opening my mouth was that terrifying. I ignored them and said a bit more.

"Before I came up here, Jiwon-hyung and Yeojin-noona each grabbed one of my hands and held on…… It meant a lot to me."

At my words, the two of them let out a whoop of celebration. I continued.

"Everyone at the company said it was bad luck to jinx things, so not a single person even mentioned the Best New Actor award. They kept calling it a superstition and telling me not to say anything…… Honestly, I was grateful for that too. Thank you. Oh, and—"

From a distance, Do Yeojin was drawing a giant X with her hands, mouthing over and over that if I had a problem with it, I could take it up with her later. But the staff member was already waving me on, insisting I had to say one more thing, so I did.

"And thank you to my parents. I miss them."

With that, I gave my bow and stepped down from the stage.

The three from Leader Actors came toward me to pick up my bouquet. Do Yeojin's eyes were rimmed red as she spoke.

"What the— that was about your parents? And here I was worried for nothing."

"Like I'd cause a scene in front of the cameras."

"Hey, if anyone was going to, it'd be me."

With that, the three of them formed a circle around me and pulled me into a hug. What a ridiculous bunch. When I got back to my seat, Shin Jiwon and Do Yeojin hugged me the exact same way. Watching them, I found myself thinking that maybe it wasn't just my company—maybe human beings were, by nature, creatures like this. Fortunately, both teams I'd worked with won awards as well. That was quietly satisfying too.

Once the scheduling was locked in, filming began. I was anxious—was this pace really right?—but everyone else just shrugged, saying we'd all part ways eventually anyway, so what was there to worry about? Seo Joongsung, returning to a drama after a long absence, looked about as restless as I did. Though of course, he brushed it off—it's a network weekend drama, how big a deal could it be?

Thankfully, the set itself was a comfortable one. With so many veterans around, Hyun Sohee—my co-star playing Gwak Jaehee—and I were practically treated like newborns.

Since so many of the cast's schedules had to be juggled and matched up, both Sohee and I ended up with a lot of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠pre-dawn and weekend shoots. The shooting order was a jumbled mess too, so we'd suddenly find ourselves filming scenes that wouldn't air until much later. Not that I was a stranger to that sort of thing……

"So where does this one show up, anyway?"

With ten separate incidents crammed into every single episode, the actors regularly lost track of which part of the story was being filmed at any given moment. Most of the time people just assumed the scene was necessary and didn't ask, but every now and then curiosity got the better of them. And when it did, I was usually the one who explained.

"This is the scene where you two make up after your fight in episode 4."

"Ah…… wow. How do you know that? I filmed my half two weeks ago."

When the actor playing my uncle asked me that, the actress playing my aunt called out from far across the set.

"Gyeowool's memory is amazing, isn't it? I ask him every single day. Every day."

"Gyeowool works so hard keeping an eye on us old folks."

The funny thing was, the more filming went on, the more the atmosphere started to feel like one big family. Which, given the story of the drama, was only fitting.

That said, I wasn't the youngest one on set. That was because there were child actors at the orphanage scenes whom I had to look after.

Moon Gyeowool had been left at a lost-child shelter at the age of three, then abducted and placed in an orphanage. And the nephew of the orphanage director nun—the man who would later become connected to Gyeowool—was Gwak Jaehee.

Today, I was filming the scene where Gwak Jaehee visits his aunt's care facility for the first time in ages and meets me.

Hyun Sohee's shoot wasn't until the afternoon, but she'd arrived at the set early, while I was still filming in the morning.

"Noona. Why are you here already?"

When I asked, Hyun Sohee answered with sleepy eyes from staying up all night on another shoot.

"I wanted to watch you act."

"That's fine, just—stop crying, okay?"

"Ugh, fine. I'll try not to cry."

Sohee said that, but it was clear she'd need several deep breaths to manage it.

She wasn't the only one who'd come to watch; a few other actors had gathered as well. Strange—it felt like more and more people kept showing up to watch my shoots, as if the set were some restaurant that had gone viral for being delicious.

The scene I had to perform in the morning was with a child actor playing a kid who had just been dropped off at the orphanage.

I heard he was nine in Korean age. The original script had called for a six-year-old, but they'd changed the role after deciding a child needed to be at least nine to carry the acting it required.

The child actor—a boy named Seo Hara—had spent the time before his sad scene running all over the set, burning off his energy so he could let go of it when the moment came.

And then he stood in front of me, wearing a face that, to anyone watching, wasn't sad in the slightest.

"Hara, you have to cry."

His mother and the director kept saying it in turn, but he couldn't do it.

"The tears won't come……"

His face said it all—he wanted so badly to do it, and simply couldn't.

For some reason, watching that frustrated little boy reminded me of that winter shoot when I was ten, the first time the Demon had ever appeared to me.

I remembered just how cold the adults' gazes had felt back then. On a set where not a single soul was on my side, the only one who'd shown up for me had been the Demon.

I looked at the child actor, whose tears refused to come, who was simply growing pale and frozen with fear.

the Demon said. You absolute lunatic.

Staring down at the little boy in front of me, I felt the true depth of just how wicked this demon really was.

'Absolutely not.'

I said it flatly, then knelt down in front of the child and opened my arms.

"Come here."

At my words, Seo Hara hesitated for a moment, then came over and buried himself in my arms. He really was tiny.

"It's okay. You don't have to cry."

"……I don't have to cry?"

"Nope. I'll ask them to change it. So you don't have to."

I remembered. The memory of just needing someone on my side. Whether relieved by that or not, the child actor started chattering in a small, wobbly voice.

"I'm playing a kid whose mom and dad are gone."

"Yeah."

"It's so sad."

"It is, isn't it."

Had it been sad? To a child's eyes, surely even more so.

He wakes up in a hospital bed after the car accident. He can't believe he'll never see his parents again, so he throws a tantrum—I remembered that. He'd convinced himself they were simply refusing to let him see them on purpose.

It hadn't taken him long to reach resignation. Children are fragile, but flexible in the face of the world's changes. In my case, I'd stopped fighting back after a day, maybe two. Only then did the sadness hit.

"Get angry at me first. It's me who won't let you see your parents, right? So get angry. Ask me why you can't see them."

"I was gonna cryyy…"

"I know. But still—try getting angry first."

With that, I let Seo Hara go. He must have been cold, because even after I released him, he wouldn't let go of me, clinging tight and shivering. So I held on a little longer too.

And then Seo Hara began to rage at me.

"I'm going to see Mom and Dad!"

"No."

"I am! I'm going!"

"You can't see them anymore. You live here now, Hara. You're not going to live with Mom and Dad anymore."

"No! I want to go home! I'm going hooome!"

The more I refused to let him go home, the more Seo Hara's emotions surged. The director gestured at me to push harder, and I kept coaxing the child's anger along.

And then, the moment his fury reached its peak, the child actor finally burst into tears.

Thankfully, the boy broke into full sobs, and the shoot went off without a hitch.

By the time we finished filming all of episode 5, the first broadcast had aired. I was on set at the time, so I couldn't watch it. In fact, it wasn't just the premiere I'd missed—I hadn't been able to watch a single episode for over a month.

The first weekend of the newly launched weekend drama came to a close.

The air in the drama department was, astonishingly, bright and buoyant. And no wonder.

Weekend dramas typically drew higher ratings on Saturday than on Sunday.

The Saturday rating came in at 12.3%. A modest number, but a small comfort nonetheless.

And then, the next day.

14.1%.

It had broken through every expected pattern—Sunday's ratings had risen.

The department head, his face pale with adrenaline, stormed into the My Love Like the Moon team—Moon Love for short—without even sparing a moment to sit down and wait.

"What was it? Which scene? What hit so well?"

"Moon Gyeowool, sir!"

"Moon Gyeowool?"

The ratings told the story with absolute clarity.

At the end of Saturday's episode, when the couple who had lost their child revealed that their feelings for each other were still alive, there had been a marked spike. Then, on Sunday, the peak rating landed on the scene where Gwak Jaehee notices, while Moon Gyeowool is caring for the children at the orphanage, that something is wrong with him.

That ratings graph spoke, with perfect precision, of the viewers' hearts.

In just two episodes, the audience had lost their hearts to a young man named Moon Gyeowool.

The production company was every bit as electrified, tension crackling beneath barely restrained excitement. Over in the PR team, the office was abuzz with talk of the behind-the-scenes footage from episodes 1 and 2.

"Whoever shot that behind-the-scenes footage did an incredible job."

"The one with Actor Lee Heeyoon and the kid? That was a given, obviously."

"Heeyoon just gets child actors. I guess it's because he was one himself."

"I cry every time I watch that footage. Genuinely."

As it happened, the moment of actor Lee Heeyoon and the child actor raising their emotions together before the scene had been caught on the PR team's camera.

Right after episodes 1 and 2 aired, the behind-the-scenes clip went up on a weekday.

Just as the PR team had predicted, the conversation between Lee Heeyoon and the child actor drew an enormous wave of attention.