Live

"You're starting filming today? Right now? The whole world's in an uproar over you."

Do Jaeyeon had been fretting the entire drive to Wooheonjeong to pick up Lee Heeyoon, and Gam Seongbeom finally cut in.

"We're the only ones worrying. Heeyoon's just planning to catch up on his dramas."

Gam Soohan chimed in next.

"It's uncanny, honestly. Kid these days knows the whole broadcast schedule by heart. He really does love his dramas."

"And movies. He knows everything playing in theaters, watches every Academy winner he can get his hands on."

"And theater."

"Oh, come on, he only watched that because a friend was in it."

"He loves Shakespeare."

"If Shakespeare were born in this era, he'd have done film."

Gam Seongbeom, cinema devotee that he was, declared it with the finality of a man settling a lifelong argument.

By then the three of them had arrived at Wooheonjeong. They opened the gate and stepped in to find the snow-covered courtyard laced with countless footprints. Gam Soohan greeted the sight warmly.

"Looks like a Koltes day."

Glancing toward the wooden veranda, they found Lee Heeyoon in Gam Ihyeon's study, every play Bernard-Marie Koltès had ever written pulled off the shelves and spread open around him.

Gam Seongbeom began tidying the books into a bag as he spoke.

"Ah, you're supposed to love film. Not theater."

He said it knowing full well that a boy lost in a script wouldn't hear a word of it, and Gam Soohan chided him.

"You're the only person alive who denies that Heeyoon loves theater."

"I don't look down on theater. It's just that it can't touch film."

Having packed away the entire Koltès collection, the unrepentant cinephile then pried the play right out of Lee Heeyoon's hands.

"You're the pillar of our company. Why are you out here reading in the cold?"

It was obvious enough without looking—if the boy found a line he liked while reading like that, he'd have turned the snowy courtyard into his stage and tried it out. That, surely, was where all those footprints had come from.

Once they were in the car, Do Jaeyeon turned to Lee Heeyoon.

"Did you see the article?"

"What article?"

"There's this thing called the internet. Try using it once in a while."

"I use it. When I check the broadcast schedule. I visit KOBIS all the time too."

"You need a hobby that isn't acting."

"No time for one. Thirty—"

Lee Heeyoon stopped himself mid-sentence and reached instead for a tangerine from the mountain of them that always filled the car. Then he asked Do Jaeyeon:

"So what hobby would you suggest?"

"Sports?"

"I do that every day."

"Not that kind. A team sport."

"I don't like crowds."

"Ugh, fine—find one yourself."

Do Jaeyeon snapped at him and swapped his whole tangerine for a fully peeled one. Popping it into his mouth, Lee Heeyoon tried again.

"So what article are you talking about?"

"Oh, right. You've had me so scattered I keep going off on tangents."

Do Jaeyeon handed him a tablet, then added:

"You met the reporter who wrote this yesterday, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"I remember him. He's been digging hard into the monster role in Giyeon."

Lee Heeyoon skimmed Lim Donghwa's article. He had pop-ups blocked, but ad windows still sprang up everywhere. He fought his way through the clutter, read it once—and then started over from the beginning.

Lim Donghwa, an entertainment desk reporter, had long been running a theater column that drew modest readership at best. It was a series he'd kept up on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠his own initiative for quite a while.

It was about Voyage of Evil, and most of the piece dwelled on Han Jeonghyeon's performance. But Do Jaeyeon had shown it to Lee Heeyoon because of a single sentence at the bottom.

A single line. Do Jaeyeon said:

"Every other reporter called you his friend. This guy's the only one who wrote rival."

"Huh."

"Bother you? Say the word and I'll make a call."

"Well."

Lee Heeyoon looked up from the article and told her:

"Rival's not quite the word."

"Right?"

"Right now, at this point in time, Han Jeonghyeon's probably the better actor."

"……Wha?"

The answer was so stunning that Do Jaeyeon, Gam Soohan—even Gam Seongbeom, who had nearly whipped his head around from the driver's seat—all but spun to stare at him.

Lee Heeyoon offered nothing further. He simply ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠went on diligently reading the rest of the columns. When they reached the set, Gam Seongbeom asked:

"What's theater got that film doesn't?"

Lee Heeyoon raised his head at that. Gam Seongbeom pressed on.

"What makes it better than a movie?"

"I couldn't say 'better.' What I'd say is—it's live."

"And besides that?"

"There are plenty of smaller differences besides, sure. But when there's one big, obvious difference, who cares about the rest?"

"So that's it. Live."

Everyone knows it. The great divide between film and theater.

One remains; the other vanishes with time. One preserves a single, peak performance on film forever, while the other goes on performing—different every night, changing by degrees, never twice the same.

If you asked Lee Heeyoon for theater's greatest advantage, the three of Leader Actors thought, it would be, without question, that part: that the performance keeps going.

Lee Heeyoon went back to scrolling through columns on the tablet. Gam Seongbeom shot a glance at him in the rearview mirror and muttered:

"See? Told you. That's not reading plays. That's a straight-up addiction to printed words."

I kept turning the pages of the column, and the Demon kept chattering at my side.

I read as much of reporter Lim Donghwa's work as I could before we arrived.

The man I'd run into at the theater had been rather flustered and awkward, but his columns were the exact opposite. They were a knife so sharp it could split a brick.

Most writers I'd encountered, once I'd read their work, felt like the sort of person who would write it—in their temperament, their looks, their whole air. This reporter wasn't like that at all.

I was still reading as I got out of the car, so Do Jaeyeon snatched the tablet away and handed me tea she'd brought in a thermos. Gam Soohan asked:

"What's in it?"

I looked at Do Jaeyeon.

"It's a warming tea, right?"

"Yep."

"Then cinnamon and jujube."

Hearing this, Gam Soohan looked relieved.

"Oh, so just an ordinary herbal tea—"

"Chives."

"……is not what it is."

"Oh, and potato."

"……Is that even tea?"

"Boiled, it's tea."

At that, Do Jaeyeon nodded along in solemn agreement beside me.

Stepping onto the set, I could feel it—everyone was pitying me, a little. Each actor made a point of hugging me once on sight. It was tiresome, but there was nothing to be done about it, so I let them.

I hadn't been keeping up with entertainment news, so I hadn't realized, but apparently my guardianship story was the hottest topic going among older folks.

Even so, within the set, I had no occasion to touch that outside world.

At its heart, Love in the Moon was a bright, cheerful drama. Even Moon Gyeoul, my character, kept getting comic scenes even as his illness worsened.

Then came the scene where his body suddenly gave out and he lay alone in a hospital bed. It was an intensely lonely scene. Lying there in the bed, I felt a stab of loneliness, oddly real.

During a short break in filming, Seo Joongsung—the actor playing Moon Gyeoul's father, who'd been waiting on set—approached the hospital room with his two daughters. He hesitated, fidgeting, then asked me:

"Uh, Heeyoon. How about... come over to our place for dinner tonight?"

"Everyone's asking me that today."

I'd gotten this offer from a lot of people. Actors and crew alike, apparently. Come have a meal at our place.

After enough invitations, it finally clicked.

"Is it because I look lonely?"

I'd turned them all down, so it seemed they'd decided to make refusal impossible by bringing the kids. Seo Joongsung's elementary schooler and his soon-to-be-first-grader climbed right up onto the hospital bed and announced:

"We're gonna eat lots of yummy stuff!"

"We're buying cake, and—oh! Strawberries too, and ice cream too, and..."

They didn't seem to know what was actually for dinner either. Good grief—do kids that age really never sit still for even a second? They were scrambling on and off the bed, behind me, in front of me, absolute chaos.

Eating dinner in the middle of this bedlam sounded like a recipe for indigestion, and I was about to decline when Seo Joongsung mentioned, ever so casually:

"You should tell him it's your birthday."

"Oh, right! It's my birthday!"

The older girl remembered belatedly, throwing her hand straight up in the air.

It was a birthday invitation?

No—how was I supposed to refuse that?

"...Okay."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Really."

"Dad! Gyeoulie's coming to our house!"

Her voice was magnificent. I briefly lost my hearing, I believe.

Unbothered by my wincing and plugging my ears, Seo Joongsung beamed at me.

"Come over when you're done shooting. We'll be out buying the cake."

"Got it."

So, swept along, I'd accepted a dinner invitation and was about to return to filming when a KakaoTalk message arrived from Kang Minha, the actress playing my mother.

Those two had clearly conspired. The messages arrived far too fast for it to be otherwise. In the end, I had no choice but to promise I'd visit Kang Minha's house too.

While I was typing my reply, the director sidled up, gave me a sidelong look, and said:

"Popular kid, aren't you, Gyeoulie."

"It's a hassle."

"Sure, sure. Ours too, whenever you get around to it."

I knew it—I should have refused everyone from the start. Agree to one house, and now I owed a visit to all of them.

Was it because this was a family drama? Everyone fussed over me enormously.

I'm not like this, but a good number of actors immerse themselves so deeply in a role that they end up projecting their character onto their scene partners as well.

The cast of Love in the Moon was the same. They genuinely seemed to think of me as a child who'd been lost and finally found again.

Well, once the drama wrapped, that spell would wear off anyway. I could put up with a little fussing.

People were a bother, sure—but Love in the Moon itself was a good drama. If I ever regressed a second time, I knew I'd choose this drama again.

Over at the performing arts high school, the acting and media production departments of the 36th class were waiting for their graduation year to arrive.

Woo Woongbae, top of the film department, had brought the screenplay ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠he'd started writing the moment he entered high school to its final stages—and Lee Heeyoon and Han Jeonghyeon of the acting department had far surpassed even the expectations held when they'd enrolled.

In January, the acting department teachers gathered in one room, and everyone was talking about this 36th class.

The school had tried many things to draw the public's eye, starting with the Regular Performance Survival. And the graduation production of this 36th class was destined to bloom as the finale of it all.

"They're both so busy these days... I doubt they can do the graduation production at all."

"Why not ask them? They both take part in everything school-related as much as they can."

At that, the youngest of the acting faculty spoke up—Hong Hyunsang, homeroom teacher of Team Boundary, winners of the Regular Performance Survival.

"If both of them take part... why not do Hamlet?"

And he held out the short video Woo Woongbae had filmed long ago—of Lee Heeyoon and Han Jeonghyeon together.