No Draws at the End of the Game

Because I had to sit for the high school equivalency exam, CEO Gam Seongbeom canceled nearly all of the "lucrative schedule" my uncle had set up.

My uncle — Lee Kyunghoon — was, astonishingly, a man with some shred of face to save, and he never actually showed up at the company. He did, however, call Gam Seongbeom and say this:

"You do realize every minor's contract requires my signature, right?"

It was a threat: unless his demands were met, he would refuse to sign anything the company brought him in the future.

Brushing the threat aside, I applied for the exam scheduled for August. Once I passed it, the early-admission process would begin, and by late October I would be performing my practical audition for a Seoul university's theater department.

After I filed the application, Gam Seongbeom ordered jokbal — braised pig's trotters.

"Enough fish. Tonight we eat pig."

I had never once eaten jokbal before regressing. The three of them at Leader Actors were destined to become family, it seemed, because they all shared the same palate — and they held the unshakable conviction that the pinnacle of late-night food was jokbal, and that the peak above even that was fire-grilled, spicy jokbal.

The prejudice is unquestionably correct. Why, of all things, feet?

Right before I regressed, my one wish had been to eat jokbal with those three. But seeing the delivery actually arrive, I found myself wondering why I'd ever thought that. I must have been briefly insane.

"Fire-grilled okay for you?"

Vice President Gam Soohan asked, looking at me. The other two were looking at me as well.

Apparently, a person who didn't eat jokbal simply could not exist among these people. Well — perhaps someone frail enough to be unable to handle spice. Which meant this wasn't a question of taste but one of accommodation for the weak.

I shook my head.

"This is my first time eating jokbal."

As I said it, Gam Soohan quietly placed the non-spicy portion onto my plate.

The three people who should have been raising the roof — how can anyone not like jokbal? — went strangely silent, so I lifted my head and found three stunned faces. Tears were welling up in Gam Soohan's eyes without warning.

Apparently I looked like someone who'd been starved of treats his whole life. Well, it wasn't entirely wrong.

I had become a stranger stepping into some fanatically closed community, one who could only be accepted if he ate the jokbal. Summoning my courage, I took my first bite.

The flavor was odd. Better than expected, maybe — though honestly I've never been good with taste; I think I just hated the idea of feet.

I picked at the jokbal and filled my stomach while the three of them sat in solemn silence for a while. Then Do Jaeyeon spoke.

"Oh, right, the admissions thing. Free-form acting is basically a free meal for you, but they require a specialty. And you have to write a personal statement too."

At that, Gam Seongbeom made a sour face and asked me,

"So what's your specialty?"

"Don't have one."

"Hey, at least pretend to think before you answer. Seriously, when does puberty end."

Gam Seongbeom smacked me on the back out of pure habit, caught the eyes of his staff looking at him like he was a piece of human garbage, and hastily began rubbing my back in smooth, apologetic strokes.

A specialty.

I'd done nothing but act until I was thirty-seven, so nothing worth calling a specialty came to mind.

While I was racking my brain, Gam Seongbeom turned to Do Jaeyeon.

"Jaeyeon-ssi, yours is special combat arts, isn't it?"

"Yes, but even if I taught you, it wouldn't be usable in an audition."

So I said,

"I learned a bit of special combat arts too."

"Weren't you the one without a specialty?"

I'd learned it back when I had a lot of action scenes to do. My memory of it was hazy, but it felt like I'd trained for quite a while. At my words, the three of them stared at me again. Huh, now that I think of it—

"Is horseback riding a specialty too?"

"……Hyung, hold on. Stay quiet. Keep it coming."

Gam Seongbeom shot to his feet like a man about to lose his mind, and Gam Soohan frantically waved his hands to settle him back down. Meanwhile, I kept digging.

Still, for a theater audition, I should come up with something more acting-specific—

And then I remembered something I had forgotten.

"I went to America right after I was born and lived there. I've forgotten most of it, so I don't even know if I still can…"

At my words, Gam Seongbeom sprang up. Then he looked at me and asked,

"Could you act in English?"

"I haven't done it since I was seven, so I genuinely don't know whether I can or not."

"Soohan-ah!"

Gam Seongbeom called for Gam Soohan, the only one of the three who'd gone to college through the national entrance exam. Startled by the booming voice, Gam Soohan pushed up his thin-framed glasses and fired a stream of questions at me in English.

After a short back-and-forth, he rushed off to the desktop. Do Jaeyeon called out from the printer.

"English script's already printed."

"Thanks, Jaeyeon-ssi."

Gam Soohan took the pages with a small, formal bow. Do Jaeyeon's face clouded over with indifference.

And that is supposedly the face of a man in love. Around this time in my previous life, I'd assumed Do Jaeyeon found Gam Soohan exasperating. Thinking about it now, though, it seems people in love wear it very differently depending on their temperament.

I'll have to observe humans a little more closely.

"Think you can do this one?"

What they handed me was Treplev's monologue from The Seagull — the same speech Treplev delivers to Nina, and later, Tregorin's.

There's probably no woman preparing for an acting audition who hasn't read Nina's monologue. Same for the men. It's just that the men's side requires a choice between the two.

I picked up Treplev's first.

I've read The Seagull so many times I can recite the monologues without looking. The English was another matter, though — and reading it, I discovered something.

Looking back, the period when I actually used English was when I was living with my parents. Speaking that language dredged up those old memories. The memories my thirty-seven-year-old body had lost still lived inside my sixteen-year-old one.

I was reading through the script when Gam Seongbeom stopped me.

"This play might be too difficult for you to understand."

Gam Seongbeom could barely speak English, yet he'd instantly noticed that I'd drifted off mid-monologue into other thoughts. I clutched the script he was trying to take away.

"I was using English back when I lived with my parents, so it brought up memories from when I was little. I can focus again."

At my words, Gam Seongbeom flinched for some reason, and — sharply picking up on the glare Do Jaeyeon was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠drilling into him — he ducked away into a corner. Compared to that look, what I'd seen earlier really had been love. It wasn't even a difficult distinction to make.

Gam Seongbeom had merely noticed that my concentration had broken, and even Gam Soohan was giving him the piece-of-human-garbage stare.

I read the monologue again.

Once in English, then a second time in Korean, reciting the version I'd already memorized. Gam Seongbeom, who had been standing self-imposed punishment in the corner, came back over and said,

"Practical's ready. You're done."

"One read-through and it's over?"

"For you, even this was a waste of time. Now there's only one thing left for you to do."

"What? The personal statement?"

"Ah — right, two things…… Soohan will help you with the statement. What you need to do now is eat well, sleep well, and grow past 170."

"Oh."

Right.

Come to think of it, that was the most important thing right now.

Having long since raised both her son and her daughter, Park Seonyoung — now caring for her husband Gam Ihyeon through his illness — found the newly arrived Lee Heeyoon to be a welcome presence in the house.

Gam Ihyeon needled his wife, who was putting together an answer-key notebook for the boy who'd come to live with them.

"Your eyes are absolutely sparkling. If you're this excited, why did you retire at all? You should have stayed until mandatory retirement."

"Oh, stop pestering me. I'm busy."

She waved him off, but he was apparently bored, because he kept hovering nearby and talking at her.

"What does school matter? Heeyoon is a man who must dedicate his life to acting."

"The boy never got to attend school at all. There will be student roles coming his way for years — an actor has to live an experience before he can play it."

They had lived together long enough that Park Seonyoung knew exactly how to shut the mouth of her husband, that art-for-art's-sake zealot. Sure enough, it will help you as an actor was the magic phrase.

Gam Ihyeon still grumbled his dissatisfaction, but at the words an experience he must have as an actor, he went quiet, lips pushed out in a pout. Park Seonyoung glanced at him as he wheeled his chair toward the glass doors.

Sparkling eyes truly was a mother-in-law's flattery, nothing more. And yet Gam Ihyeon, still handsome, caught the sunlight through the glass, and his eyes quite literally gleamed like jewels. Until that very morning — the morning Lee Heeyoon appeared — his eyes had been withered things.

"……"

He was looking at something on his phone. Curious, she craned her neck — it was a video of Lee Heeyoon's Seagull monologue, sent by their son.

Watching again the footage he had watched countless times already, Gam Ihyeon was mouthing the monologue along with it.

He was practicing.

Watching the acting of a grandchild young enough to be fresh out of the cradle, he was checking his own performance against it once more. Even now, even this old and worn out, Gam Ihyeon still wanted to act — even believing there would never be another chance.

Park Seonyoung paused her notebook and looked at the document lying beneath it.

People of Wooheonjeong

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Beneath the investment proposal, a request for Gam Ihyeon's special appearance had been written.

The exam went well.

Even I hadn't known this about myself, but I turned out to be exceptionally good at memorization. I'd assumed it was just from reading so many scripts, but my memory itself had improved across the board.

Back home, I graded it with Park Seonyoung and had gotten nearly everything right. All that remained was the practical, and high school was within reach.

The warning appeared just after we finished grading, as Park Seonyoung was heading out, saying she'd buy a cake.

Is that thing really a demon?

The weather was so hot that the demon had apparently gone a little soft in the head. Poof, it says. I clicked my tongue — and only then hurriedly looked around.

I had assumed this was the era when Leader Actors could do nothing but ride its winning streak. And a problem could already arise?

I sprinted for the company building.

When I got there, nothing was wrong. Everyone, in fact, was out on location scouting — there wasn't a soul in the office. I combed the place top to bottom, found nothing, and went home.

What was it?

I was gripping my head, racking my brain, when I suddenly happened to check the time.

Does buying a cake usually take this long?

I bolted for the door the moment I registered it, dialing Park Seonyoung as I ran. But the cursed phone was so ancient ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠its battery was already hanging by a thread.

The second she picked up, I said it:

"There's no such thing as a draw at the end of a game of janggi. If it ends in a draw, then ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a draw is all it ever was. It's not that we played the game and failed."

And with those words, the battery died.