In This Life I Will Die as an Actress Not a Villainess Chapter 10

Okay, that’s enough.

I flipped the light back on.

Yuseok looked at me with startled eyes.

Tears still streaming down his face, as if he hadn’t yet emerged from the emotion.

I applauded him.

Clapping loudly to break the atmosphere.

“Yuseok, you did so well.”

“What…?”

“Just now, that was incredible. Your emotions were perfect.”

Yuseok looked bewildered as he wiped away his tears and stared blankly at himself in the mirror.

“Go ahead and watch.”

I pulled out my phone that I’d hidden behind the script and showed him the recorded video.

First, from his warm-up all the way through his performance.

“This is during your warm-up. What do you think the problem is?”

At my question, Yuseok’s face flushed as he watched the video.

“It looks like I’m overacting. But I can’t really control it…”

“Then what about this one?”

I played the second video.

It was the scene where he exchanged dialogue with me, then exploded with emotion and shouted.

“Look, when you’re angry here. Does this look like overacting?”

“Um… no…?”

“It’s natural, right? Don’t try to manufacture it and show it off—push yourself until you’re genuinely angry.”

“…”

“You had trouble coming out of that emotion after our conversation ended, didn’t you?”

“Yes. The tears wouldn’t stop… Actually, even now.”

“Don’t forget that feeling.”

After hearing my words, Yuseok stayed silent for a long while, only breathing heavily with heightened emotion.

“Noona.”

“Yeah?”

“Please hit me.”

“What?!”

What’s with this kid.

I instinctively took a step back.

Yuseok took a bold step forward.

Looking at that determined face… I burst out laughing.

“You want me to keep pushing you like this from now on?”

“Yes, noona.”

It seemed like the words I’d thrown at him felt like getting beaten with clubs.

I could tell without him saying it.

Because when I first learned acting, I’d started by pushing myself to the edge of a cliff to draw out emotions too.

“Let’s both work hard.”

I lightly patted Yuseok’s shoulder.

* * *

“Hey, what’s with you? How can you change this much in just one day?”

“Kid, how much did you practice? Huh?”

The acting coach and team leader sitting on the practice room sofa applauded as they watched Yuseok’s performance.

Yuseok smiled happily, feeling the sweat running down his back.

I did it.

It was the first compliment he’d ever heard.

No, the second compliment.

“Yuseok, you kept making me worry, but now you’re growing—teacher’s gonna cry here.”

The trainer pretended to dab at tears.

He gave an embarrassed smile and bowed his head.

His head was spinning.

Looking in the mirror, his face was flushed.

Just like that day.

* * *

“Yuseok, you did so well.”

“What…?”

“Just now, that was incredible. Your emotions were perfect.”

He couldn’t understand what his sunbae was saying.

His head went blank.

He couldn’t even remember what words they’d exchanged.

After finishing the performance, his body just trembled and tears flowed.

When his sunbae showed him the videos, the first performance was as pathetic as usual.

His image that he’d practiced, recorded, and reviewed hundreds of times.

His foolish image.

The image of himself he already knew.

It was terrible.

Right, I was a terrible actor.

But the moment Sena sunbae played the second video, his breath stopped.

“No!!! I don’t know what to do. Who even am I? Who is Lee Yeongseok? Why is he doing this to me!!”

In the darkness, he was screaming and raging, overcome with emotion.

With a face even he’d never seen before.

He saw Pi Jeonghan in himself crying out in anguish.

And inside Pi Jeonghan was himself.

Himself, completely consumed by inferiority.

In that moment, Seongjun’s face came to mind.

When he first met Seongjun, his own image collapsing in front of the mirror every time while practicing alone…

He faced Seongjun and his own heart that hated Seongjun for the first time.

Countless images flashed across his face as he performed.

His world was contained in himself performing Pi Jeonghan.

And paradoxically, that world revealed Pi Jeonghan.

After watching the entire video, the lights came on…

Suddenly his eyes met his own face reflected in the mirror.

His face was drenched in tears and sweat.

His familiar face felt somehow strange.

And then… it felt like he’d been struck on the head.

He realized he’d delivered his first proper immersive performance since starting to act.

After Sena sunbae left that day, he stayed up all night practicing the same script hundreds of times.

He was anxious he might forget this sensation he’d felt for the first time.

He pushed himself, turning the practice room lights off and on hundreds of times.

The same emotion didn’t come every time, and his body and mind grew exhausted beyond measure.

But as he repeated the practice with the image training Sena sunbae had taught him, he could feel his acting gradually becoming more natural.

Above all… when he couldn’t think of anything and his head went blank.

When he was truly immersed, acting became so comfortable and easy.

He never dreamed that one simple switch for turning off lights could make him feel so at ease.

He realized once again just how conscious he’d been of his own inadequacies.

“Following what Sena sunbae told me to do… it really works.”

Leaning his exhausted body against the practice room wall and drinking water, he thought of his sunbae.

“She’s really an amazing sunbae.”

She’d always been known as a good actor in the department, but she wasn’t someone who really stood out until the Flat Shoes audition.

But at the end-of-semester performance, she was truly incredible.

Han Sena’s Ophelia.

That Ophelia belonged to Han Sena alone.

Just how much grueling practice must she have done?

How do you become like that…

Did noona struggle with the same concerns as me?

From sunbae’s advice, he felt something like deep sincerity unlike others.

‘Don’t forget that feeling.’

Those words carried something like the experience you couldn’t feel from a newcomer.

Moreover…

Thinking back, when coaching his acting, she’d drawn out his inferiority complex that he’d never told anyone about—like someone who knew it better than anyone.

Whenever he ruminated on that day’s events, thinking his shame had been exposed…

“Ugh, so embarrassing.”

He had to shudder.

He was gradually becoming more curious about Han Sena as a person.

Whatever the case…

He’d really done well to seek her out.

He’d been wandering too much all this time.

He stood back up.

* * *

“How the hell did you do this?”

Yuseok’s arms swayed this way and that, shaken by his opponent like a sheet of paper.

The person pestering Yuseok was Kwon Minyeong, the Management Director of Actor Division 3.

True Actors’ founding contributor and someone on the verge of becoming a traitor…

An ironic figure with many stories in various ways.

“A school sunbae helped me.”

“School sunbae? Who?”

Minyeong asked persistently.

“There’s someone named Han Sena.”

“Han Sena? Who’s that?”

“The sunbae who passed the audition for Yoo Ji-an’s role in Flat Shoes this time.”

“Flat Shoes??”

Well, well, look at this.

Minyeong’s eyebrows drew closer together as she listened.

If it was Flat Shoes, she’d already obtained the script that had been floating around the industry a while ago and read it several times.

It was Minyeong’s regret that the agency didn’t have any talent to send to that audition.

“How did she help you? Rescuing a kid like you…”

At those words, Yuseok’s eyes went flat.

“Excuse me.”

Only Minyeong could give such blunt assessments to Yuseok.

Because she’d been the one closest to witnessing the arduous days Yuseok had struggled for his acting.

‘Han Sena…’

“Your face looks more relaxed today?”

At Minyeong’s words, Yuseok smiled brightly.

“Does it?”

“Have you been sleeping these days?”

At Minyeong’s question, Yuseok scratched his head.

“Just a tiny bit?”

“Sleeping pills aren’t good. Cut back. Acting’s not such a big deal. Living is more important.”

At a company dinner before, Yuseok had drunkenly confessed in front of everyone that he’d been suffering from nightmares every night since joining the company.

‘It’s been even more hell since joining the agency! Because it means my skills being exposed in front of others is right around the corner. I really can’t act! Every night, in my dreams… people point fingers at me.’

After saying this, Yuseok had gotten completely wasted and passed out.

And Minyeong, who’d heard those words, had let out a deep sigh.

Because she felt so sorry for him.

In Yuseok’s case, even with a good trainer attached, even practicing six hours every day, he didn’t improve.

“But I finally feel like…”

Minyeong looked up at Yuseok’s face.

“I finally feel like I’ll be okay. Even though I’m still anxious. At least… it doesn’t feel like a vast ocean anymore?”

At those words, Minyeong smacked him on the head while pretending to pat it.

“Do you know how much money went into your training?”

“Ow.”

Yuseok clutched his head.

“I’m going to sue.”

Even though they talked like this to each other…

Minyeong was the most impressive person Yuseok had seen in his life.

True Actors’ Kwon Minyeong.

This person couldn’t tolerate injustice, and had developed the company with her tenacity of clinging to anything until it was done.

But people with the power to push forward forcefully always attract enemies.

Minyeong had received concentrated hatred from various people throughout her ambitious company career.

She’d been marked by management countless times.

Because in an industry where all kinds of sordid incidents and accidents were commonplace, Minyeong had never once turned a blind eye to injustice.

To a degree that made watching people frustrated.

And Minyeong maintained a composed attitude toward her fate of having to embrace such troubles.

She only ever proved herself to those who disliked her through her skill at discovering talent.

That’s the kind of person Minyeong was.

Despite company opposition all this time, Minyeong had pushed to delay Yuseok’s debut.

It wasn’t at all because she disliked Yuseok.

Just an objective judgment that this friend still needed more preparation, that was all.

Yuseok had also supported Minyeong’s intention.

Because since getting to know Minyeong, her judgment had never been wrong.

And because he knew his own skills better than anyone.

Minyeong immediately continued speaking.

“Does that person have an agency?”

“Sena sunbae? Probably not yet. Are you going to scout her?”

Without any answer, Minyeong let go of Yuseok, whom she’d been clinging to.

“Practice more. I’m leaving.”

Yuseok’s body swayed as he was pushed aside.

* * *

Minyeong walked out and became lost in thought.

Then, as if something occurred to her, she headed toward the control room.

Minyeong sat in front of the recorder booth and began reviewing the surveillance footage of Yuseok’s practice room from the past week.