I Acted Once, and Now They Call Me a Genius - Chapter 111

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 111

When episode 6 of [One Room] finally came to an end,

Gahyun: Holy shit

Kim Quokka: What the hell was that sudden psychiatric hospital drift

Tteutdol Village Complex 3: Did anyone really imagine this kind of development?

Ppoppo: Wow lmaooooooo I heard there were hints but this is actually giving me chills

White Mouse: Hints? There were such things?

Daslgi: Yeah, there have been some posts and videos like “Why studio apartments aren’t realistic” from way back ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ People treated it like nonsense though

This is so ridiculous, seriously lol

People were naturally bound to be shocked.

Everything that had happened was merely part of a hypnotherapy process taking place inside Lee Yeon-woo’s head?

Heyri: But then in the end, Jeong Hye-seong voted for his own name directly?

White Mouse: That’s how it is, yeah

meteor: But wait, what if someone other than Lee Yeon-woo had died, how were they planning to develop this?

Heyri: Then would there have been a different ending?

Kim Quokka: Well, only Ryu would know that… but maybe whoever won, they could have all been struggling in a psychiatric hospital. That would make sense of the straitjacket hints from the beginning too…

eyesonyou: But the fact that the straitjacket was foreshadowing is legendary lmaooo I thought it was just designed to show that they were all trapped

Looks-obsessed person: ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Probably almost no one expected that to be a mental hospital plot twist. I wonder if the actors all knew and were acting accordingly?

eyesonyou: Probably not?

The chat messages flew up in an instant.

Even though the drama had already ended, people’s curiosity hadn’t ended.

More, more, more.

They wanted to know more. They wanted to ask more, and they wanted to watch longer.

To put it differently, that meant they didn’t want to let go of [One Room] yet.

Ppuppo: What do we do on Fridays now… I survived on the joy of watching this

sj97: I want to see another work with this writer-director combination

eyesonyou: That seems difficult? Ryu is someone who only works when he wants to, so there’s usually at least a few years between his works.

meteor: I don’t even hope for the same writer-director combo, I just hope we can hear news of the One Room cast filming their next projects soon…

Everyone was expressing their regret like this.

The very next day after the final episode of [One Room] aired, news came that would soothe their hearts.

Freshwater Snail: Neogul Naegul review is up!

The fans of [One Room] immediately rallied.

They still had many questions about [One Room] anyway. While they could understand the surface content of [One Room], there were many hidden details they had missed and failed to notice.

Neogul Naegul must have seen something different from them.

He must have grasped something more admirable.

Amid such expectations gathering, Neogul Naegul opened his mouth with a voice full of laughter.

—Hello, everyone.

—[One Room] has finally ended. It was quite a shocking conclusion, wasn’t it? That’s probably why so many people are asking this in the comments.

—Neogul Naegul, did you know the ending?

—To give you the conclusion first… Yes, I expected it to some degree.

“Huh.”

Park Myeong-jin, who was watching this, let out a hollow laugh for a moment.

Was it bluffing? Or did he really know? Somehow it didn’t seem like bluffing. This person’s eye for seeing through works… honestly, in some aspects was even better than Park Myeong-jin’s.

—I thought from the writer’s perspective.

—If I were a writer, if I had to write a story where any character could die in any way each week, and thus not knowing who would remain at the end, how should I unfold that story?

—Of course, I don’t have the tremendous imagination that Writer Ryu has. However, looking at a story that’s already given and narrowing down the possible scenarios that could be unfolded with that story was simple work compared to creating.

—When I thought of all this as something happening inside someone’s head, everything became easy.

—Whether anyone died or lived, unfolding the story wasn’t difficult. Writer Ryu showed it from the beginning.

—That all these characters each carry their own problems.

Park Myeong-jin’s eyes darkened.

Neogul Naegul’s words weren’t nonsense. As he said, everyone in [One Room] had problems without exception.

Bang Hyeong-bin had a tendency to care more about others’ lives than his own to an excessive degree, and Jeong Hye-seong had never once lived his life independently.

Song Jae-won was, as he said, someone who couldn’t throw a punch at crucial moments, and Yoo Ji-eun… was trapped in the swamp of taking the college entrance exam for the third time, fallen into helplessness.

Neogul Naegul pointed out all those characters one by one.

If this character had won, that ending would have developed in this way.

And,

—Personally, I think the one who could have created the most smooth ending… I personally think it was Kim Seon-woo.

Neogul Naegul talked about Kim Seon-woo with a particularly satisfied voice.

—I mentioned this before. That Kim Seon-woo is placed at the narrative center of this work. I didn’t say that for no reason. If Kim Seon-woo had survived to the final chapter, and all this had happened inside Kim Seon-woo’s head… everything would become more interesting.

—If Kim Seon-woo had been the protagonist of this story, all the characters in this [One Room] would have become personalities that Kim Seon-woo possessed.

“Ooh…”

And that was the moment.

An interesting exclamation flowed from beside Park Myeong-jin.

The owner of that exclamation was Ryu. Looking at Neogul Naegul with that characteristic bloodless smile, it seemed Neogul Naegul wasn’t making completely groundless statements.

“Do you think so too, Writer?”

“It was a story I had considered.”

Ryu didn’t deny it.

“If Kim Seon-woo had survived to the end, it would have become that kind of story.”

“…That’s strange. You told him to die, didn’t you?”

“Seon-woo told you that story?”

“When Seon-woo died, he said that. ‘Ah, so that’s why you said that, to kill me like this~'”

“Hehehe.”

Ryu smiled.

“The scene where Kim Seon-woo dies was certainly attractive. Kim Seon-woo was a character who would help the drama much more by dying than by staying alive.”

“But if Seon-woo had survived and it ended like that… I think that would have been fine too.”

“Right. It would be fine. Orthodox.”

Ryu shrugged with an indifferent expression.

“That’s why I didn’t like it. I didn’t take on this project to create such a predictable work. I wanted to write developments that couldn’t come out normally. And Seon-woo surviving… that was the most normal development.”

There was actually this backstory behind asking Seon-woo to drop out.

…Of course, aside from that, there was also the fact that he just wanted to write Kim Seon-woo’s death.

—But the one who survived to the end was Lee Yeon-woo.

—Then were the people inside this another aspect of Yeon-woo? Like remnants of personalities remaining within her?

—Perhaps that could be the case. But I brought a slightly different interpretation.

—Opportunity.

—From the beginning, the moment Yeon-woo’s hypnosis ended, what the police ask the doctor is this: ‘If we release this person into society, will people die or not?’ We don’t know what situation Yeon-woo is in. It could be a parole hearing, or they might be assessing her potential as a criminal, but whatever it is, the moment she led everyone inside [One Room] to death… she essentially kicked away her own opportunity.

—From that perspective, those who were inside [One Room]… each one of them would have been an opportunity given to Yeon-woo.

—In a way, Yeon-woo’s ending itself might serve as a message.

—That harming others is ultimately no different from harming yourself.

“…What do you think?”

“You’re quite perceptive.”

“Is that the correct interpretation?”

“What do you think, PD?”

Ryu quietly smiled and looked back at Park Myeong-jin.

Park Myeong-jin shook his head with a stern expression.

“I don’t think it’s a wrong interpretation. But there’s something I’ve noticed while working with the Writer.”

“…Oh, what’s that?”

“Messages and symbolism… those things aren’t really important to the Writer.”

Ryu neither denied nor confirmed it.

He just quietly looked at Park Myeong-jin as if telling him to continue.

Seeing Ryu like that, Park Myeong-jin slowly continued speaking.

“Usually writers tend to value such things. They think it determines the completeness and value of their work. But the Writer doesn’t care about that. What people say, how they evaluate… none of that enters the Writer’s mind.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. That’s right.”

Park Myeong-jin calmly nodded and ended Neogulnaegul’s review.

Now was the time to focus on Ryu.

“The Writer seems to place value in expressing that chaotic reality itself where people clash, emotions surge, and beliefs waver. If that weren’t the case, he wouldn’t have gotten involved in a project like [One Room] in the first place.”

“You must be disappointed. That I’m that kind of writer.”

Ryu answered with a grin.

Usually writers with as much experience as Ryu tend to form partnerships with at least one director.

Writers need directors, and directors need writers.

But Ryu still didn’t have a director he could call a ‘partner’.

Most people would leave him after working with Ryu just once.

The reason was this tendency of Ryu’s. The moment directors realized that Ryu had no interest in artistic merit or completeness, from their perspective, there was no reason to work with Ryu.

When they needed to work together even more, if the writer only pursued ‘dopamine’ through scripts, it would be hard to form a good partnership.

However,

“No.”

The look in Park Myeong-jin’s eyes as he gazed at Ryu remained unchanged.

Rather, it was more like… eyes that had properly caught fire.

“I’m fine with it. No, there are even good aspects. Rather than writers who are half-heartedly afflicted with artistic pretensions, it’s better when someone has a clear character like you, Writer.”

“…You’re certainly an odd one, PD.”

“I try to be odd. In this industry, you can’t survive if you’re ordinary.”

Park Myeong-jin smiled.

“I don’t ask much from you, Writer. If you want stimulation, write stimulation. I’ll be the one to turn that into a work, into a product.”

“…That might not be as easy as it sounds? Among the directors who’ve said that before, many later said ‘even so, isn’t this going too far?'”

“Well… I don’t know about the future, but I probably won’t be like that?”

“Hmm.”

Ryu looked at Park Myeong-jin with a dubious expression.

Park Myeong-jin shrugged with an innocent expression.

“Well, at least this time, just don’t tell me things like ‘see the ending in the script later.'”

“…Well, that’s not too difficult. Are you really okay with this?”

“Of course. I’m ready whenever you are, Writer. So about that…”

Park Myeong-jin opened his mouth while glancing around cautiously.

“Do you happen to have anything in mind regarding a new work?”

This was actually the problem.

Works weren’t something you could write immediately just because you wanted to.

But fortunately,

“Yes.”

“…Yes. Yes? You already have something?”

It seemed Ryu had some ideas for a new work.

Considering that he had shown gaps of at least several years between his previous works, this was somewhat unexpected.

Ryu saw Park Myeong-jin’s mouth stretching into a grin and slightly turned his gaze away.

The paused Neogulnaegul review video happened to show a familiar face, and a slight smile appeared on Ryu’s lips.

“Actually, I didn’t have anything until recently… but I found quite an interesting muse lately.”

“A muse… you say?”

“Yes. A muse.”

Park Myeong-jin glanced at the screen, following Ryu’s gaze.

And upon seeing the face that appeared on that screen, he tilted his head for a moment.

‘Don’t tell me that muse is…’

…Kim Seon-woo?

* * *

“…Hmm.”

“What’s wrong? Are you sick somewhere?”

“No. I just felt a sudden chill for a moment. I guess it was a bit cold.”

“Be careful not to catch a cold. For an actor, your body is your lifeline.”

“Yes.”

Seon-woo nodded his head.

Watching Seon-woo like that, Seong Jun-il grinned.

“Anyway, so you’re really going to go with this?”

“Yes.”

Seon-woo’s eyes sparkled.

“I want to audition.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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