Life, Once Again!

Sometimes, she changed the channel subconsciously while watching TV. Most of the time, she did that when the scene was lewd or uninteresting, but sometimes she did so because she couldn’t bear to keep watching.

She did that not too long ago as well while watching a late-night drama. She kept watching it because the story was unlike that of the other dramas aired during the golden time and because the actors were good at acting, but she couldn’t bear to keep watching because of an actress that appeared halfway through. She had a hard time watching. Unlike the other actors who decorated the first half of the drama with stable acting skills, that actress looked like she was desperate to make herself known. That actress’ acting skills were terrible to the point that it made her wonder why the director okayed that in the first place. It was acting that made the viewer embarrassed. That actress maintained the vague emotional acting until the end, and Gaeul, who watched it for a while, felt disappointed before switching the channel.

She didn’t think that the actress’ real acting skills were only so much. Perhaps she was having a bad day that day, or it might be a mistake of the editors. For example, they might have taken footage off tape B instead of tape A, or other similar mistakes. In any case, it wasn’t something she could bear to keep watching, and she would have to have locked her fingers so that they didn’t curl up from the terrible acting. Gaeul called ‘bad acting’ like that as ‘uncomfortable acting’.

“Let go of her right now! If you want, I’ll become the hostage instead!”

Gaeul chuckled as she watched Heewon’s acting. In some sense, his acting was uncomfortable. As Gaeul was used to the more modern kind of acting, chuckles escaped her mouth when she looked at Heewon, who was expressing something along the lines of sword fighting, gun fighting, and some magical thing through his mimes. However, what was decisively different about him from the terrible woman from the drama was that she kept looking at Heewon’s acting. To be precise, just ‘looking at his acting’ might be a wrong expression. He made it so that she kept looking. Heewon was doing a funny act, but there was nothing that made her cringe.

It was a bit like black comedy. It didn’t make her laugh awkwardly because it was terrible to look at; it had elements that she could enjoy, which made her laugh. The contents, the lines, and his gestures were all very direct and sometimes childish - which was the intention for the targets of the original content anyway - but Heewon, who took it seriously and passionately, definitely had a charm that enchanted people.

Gaeul found herself clasping her hands. Gyeonmi’s assignment was just one line, but Heewon didn’t seem to have listened to that and continued his one-man skit for three minutes. Gyeonmi was tapping on her lips with her fingers with her legs crossed. Look at this guy - her expression seemed to say.

“My transformation time is almost up. Everyone, run! I will defend with my body!”

Heewon, who even bent his legs and said in a desperate tone, slowly stood up. He made a dazed expression for a few seconds before spitting out a lump of breath and started to laugh.

“And that’s it.”

“Lee Heewon.”

“Yes?”

“Didn’t I tell you to prepare one line?”

“It wasn’t one scene?”

“One line. Prepare a few lines from your favorite actors or actors you were deeply impressed with and act them out in class. I definitely said that.”

“If I knew it was just one line, I wouldn’t have put so much time into practicing….”

Heewon grumbled in a small voice, but as the practice room was closed off, the voice was clear to the ears. Gyeonmi probably heard it as well. Heewon, who noticed it a little too late, made a smile, but that didn’t work on Gyeonmi.

“Looks like you need more assignments. Haewon, can you lend me your ears?”

“Of course!”

Seemingly disappointed by the cheerful reply from his brother, Heewon became dejected and sat down. Gyeonmi and Haewon quietly talked to each other. Haewon wrote down Gyeonmi’s words with a suspicious-looking expression, and he wrote down quite a lot. It seemed that Heewon might not be able to rest at all until the next lesson.

“Why didn’t you listen more carefully?”

“I think I did… forget it. Ah, this is so bothersome.”

“You really are weird.”

“Don’t talk to me. I don’t have any energy right now. I did a whole scene when I only had to do one line. This can’t be happening to me.”

Gaeul shook her head. It seemed that voluntarily doing additional assignments came as big despair for Heewon. Well, he was someone who surprised her every time, both in a good way and a bad way.

“Lee Heewon. In any case, you did well. I had a fun time. Have you ever watched children’s musicals or something?” Gyeonmi said to Heewon as though she had finished talking to Haewon.

“No. Those things are expensive, aren’t they? It should cost around a few dozen thousand won for a ticket. If I had the money for that, I would spend it on food instead… is not what I meant to say, why are you asking that?”

“Because I felt like I was watching a children’s musical. Children’s eyes see what adults cannot. They use their exceptional imagination and imagery to see what adults, who are haunted by plausibility and reality, cannot through the directors inside their minds. If you did your act in front of kids, you would’ve gotten a very good reaction. It was very good.”

She was all praises. Heewon made pouty-smiled - meaning, he felt good because he was praised, but was sad that he did extra homework.

“However, you’re playing by yourself. I’m supposed to be the audience. A world inside a children’s movie has been nearly perfectly recreated inside your head, and you are freely running around inside it, but you were not conscious about me even a little even though I am right in front of you, making me feel a little displeased. Do you remember that you turned your back on me halfway through?”

“N-no.”

“It’s good to get absorbed. But don’t get buried under it. You need to be conscious of where you are and what you are doing at all times. This is especially important if you’re going to be an actor who acts in front of a camera. If you forget the angle and your movement lines, it will be the same as doing no acting even if you show the best of the best acting.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Sheesh, I wonder why everyone with talent has a screw loose. Is that the compensation for their talent?” Gyeonmi sighed softly before looking at Gaeul.

“Han Gaeul, you ready?”

“Yes.”

“Did you prepare a scene as well?”

“No, I prepared two lines from my favorite movie and one line from a drama.”

“I see. I appreciate that you understand my words at least. If you prepared something strange as well, this class might have been really tiring.”

Gyeonmi faintly smiled before pointing at the center of the practice room.

“Then let’s have a look, shall we?”

Before Gaeul moved, she looked at the note she wrote the lines on.

“It’s a good habit to check. Be fully prepared before you go up on the stage. Everyone can wait for that much for the actors,” Gyeonmi said.

She felt slightly relieved by the unexpected encouragement but that didn’t last long when she heard the following words.

“However, something bad would be waiting if the results don’t live up to the wait, right? Maybe, you’ll receive a glare, or get your guarantee shaved off, or you might become an actor without a script at all.”

Hearing the words that pierced her heart, Gaeul quickly put down the note before standing in the center.

“It has to be long enough to understand the context. Just because I said one line, if you really prepared just one line, I would still be disappointed.”

“I prepared a little bit before and after it as well.”

“Good, go ahead.”

Gaeul thought of an image of a virtual bed. It would be great if she could perfectly forget about the real space, but that was something impossible for her. She had to compromise and get her emotions ready. There was a bed and the man she loved was on the bed. She had never confessed her love to this man before this day. What she was trying to do right now was to confess the love she had holed up within her all this time to the man in a coma. There was no meaning, and it might be even underhanded, but she could only say it in a situation like this since she was a coward. What if she confessed before the man got into an accident? Harboring regrets, she would promise her undying love for him.

“It’s been two years since I met you. I smiled a lot when I looked at you until now. Back then, I just watched you from afar since I just liked looking at you. I could be satisfied with just that. However, the moment I saw that woman next to you, I came to realize. I realized just how foolish I was to think that I could be satisfied with just looking at you. What would’ve happened to us if I confessed to you back when that woman hadn’t met you, and I was the only one who discovered you and was in love with you? Would we have become lovers?” Gaeul spoke as she grabbed the imaginary patient’s hands.

“I like you. I don’t care what you think about me. I’m selfish? I still don’t care.”

Gaeul had to bite her lips tightly closed to hold back the surging emotions. She slowly calmed down as she remembered the touched feelings she had when she watched the movie.

“Spring Calendar?”

“Ah, yes.”

“It’s a good movie. I had fun watching it too. Only that scene violently fluctuates amidst the calmness that does not stimulate the emotions too artificially. Of course, it can’t even come close to other movies, but everyone probably cried there. Going by the plot though, the woman’s confession is really useless, you know? After all, she’s confessing to a man who already has a woman she likes. Usually, it would make people frown, but for some reason, people cry during that scene. The dam that the actor had piled up suddenly collapses without a sound, so the viewers can’t help but silently cry as well.”

“Yes. This scene left a deep impression on me as well.”

“Good, well done for now. So what did you want to say through this scene?”

That was a question she didn’t ask Heewon. Gaeul was a little flustered but quickly came up with an answer.

“I wanted to show that such a kind of love can also touch people.”

“No, no. That’s the director’s intention. I’m asking why you liked that scene, and why you chose to act it out.”

“The reason I liked it was because it was really touching.”

“Well, okay. Then why did you decide to act out that touching scene?”

“I wanted to express that moment as well.”

“What moment precisely?”

She was at a loss for words. It kept looping. She couldn’t exactly give the answer she gave for the first question.

“Did you do it because the crying Ahn Joohyun looked cool?”

“There’s that too.”

“But would that be the touching element? Of course, if you say so, it might be, but I think there’s something else as well.” 

Gaeul couldn’t say anything and Gyeonmi kept looking at her.

“Gaeul.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t freeze up. I’m not trying to scold you.”

“Yes.”

“You did well. If you were terrible, I wouldn’t have asked you such questions in the first place. It’s because you expressed it well that I’m asking you more than just that. What are you trying to express? Why did you like it? What are you ultimately trying to say by doing that acting?”

Gyeonmi stood up from her seat.

“I think that your expressivity was good. You showed enough emotions for the viewers to accept as well. However, actors shouldn’t stop there. Just showing emotions is something anyone can do with enough technical practice. A good actor needs to know what the source of those emotions is and make the viewers perfectly understand it through their acting. A person who knows a language system can speak. However, the important thing is not the act of speaking itself, but the intentions contained in the words. What do you want to show through your acting? Knowing it exactly and not knowing it definitely has their differences.”

Gaeul could only nod as she listened. To her, who only acted out that scene because she liked it, the question of what she wanted to say through her acting was something quite hard to answer.

“If you just imitate someone else’s acting, that’s just a well-performing machine. You need to imitate and after that, you need to make your own claims. That’s what an actor’s character is. The reason why every actor is different despite the fact that we have limited word selections and muscle movements is because there are infinitely many different claims contained in those acts. Gaeul, you need to think about that a little more.”

Gyeonmi put on her glasses again.

“Should I give you some time to think?”

“Yes, I’ll think about it for a while.”

“Good. I really like that attitude of yours. It’s unlike a certain irresponsible guy.”

Gaeul faintly smiled but was dizzy on the inside. She had to think. Feeling that it was hard to breathe for some reason, Gaeul sat down.