I Acted Once, and Now They Call Me a Genius - Chapter 6
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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 6
Seon-woo swallowed a sigh.
He had been prepared ever since he heard from the Director that false rumors about him had spread.
That the theater troupe members might be wary of him.
But it seemed their perception of him was worse than he had thought.
“I’m Seo Jin-wook. Nice to meet you?”
So this is why they’re trying to crush his spirit from the very start.
Seon-woo looked at Seo Jin-wook. Pale white skin, sharply slanted eyes. His physiognomy itself gave off a very cunning vibe.
His instincts told him.
This person shouldn’t be trusted.
“…Kim Seon-woo.”
Still, he couldn’t refuse a handshake.
Seo Jin-wook, who grasped Seon-woo’s hand, spoke in a leisurely voice.
“Do you have any scripts you can perform right away?”
“You can assume I have almost none. I haven’t been studying acting for very long yet.”
“Hah, is that so?”
At Seon-woo’s words, Seo Jin-wook let out a scoff. His expression showed he had no intention of hiding his disbelief.
Seon-woo didn’t blame Seo Jin-wook.
If he were one of the troupe members, he would probably feel similar.
Wasn’t it a bit strange for someone who hadn’t studied acting much to suddenly join a theater company?
However, he was starting to get annoyed.
In truth, Seon-woo hadn’t done anything particularly wrong, had he?
He came because he was recommended, and he entered because they told him to.
“Why don’t you just not act? If you don’t think you can do it, you don’t have to.”
Was there any reason to receive this kind of treatment?
Seon-woo silently stared at Seo Jin-wook. The way he was grinning showed just how much he was looking down on him.
Seon-woo pondered for a very brief moment.
Should I just lower my tail a bit?
If I confront him here, wouldn’t there be more gossip about the newcomer being too cocky?
But in the end, Seon-woo shook his head.
“No. Let’s do it.”
He hadn’t done anything wrong, so he didn’t want to lower his tail for no reason.
Especially if he showed weakness in front of someone like this, it was obvious they’d keep baring their teeth… and he wanted to show the others too.
That he wasn’t completely hopeless at acting.
Perhaps he hadn’t expected Seon-woo to come out so confidently.
Seo Jin-wook’s eyebrows twitched. But he soon smirked and held out the script.
“Then let’s try the third scene here.”
Instead of answering, Seon-woo took the script. It was a practice script. A script compiled with famous scenes pieced together from various movies.
And the scene Seo Jin-wook mentioned was…
‘Ah, I know this one.’
It was a scene he knew.
A famous scene from the zombie movie [University Hospital] that all Koreans would know.
The setting, as you can tell from the title, is a hospital.
With zombies swarming in, doctors and patients are trapped in the hospital ward.
And watching people knocking on the ward door, begging to be let in, young doctor Su-ho and older doctor Hak-jun clash in this scene.
Su-ho: (pointing at the ward door) Open the door! Let’s open the door!
Hak-jun: What are you talking about? Don’t you see the zombies behind them right now?
Su-ho: We’re doctors. We’re doctors who save lives! If we don’t open the door now, all those people will die!
Hak-jun: If we open the door? Then the people inside here will die too.
Su-ho: Then what! So we just stand here and watch those people die? Just abandon them?
Hak-jun: Speak properly. You’re not saving those people, you’d be killing the people here.
Su-ho: We have to do… we have to do something! We’re doctors! Right? So how can you tell us to just stay here and do nothing?
Hak-jun: This is doing something. Not opening that door. That’s our job. Understand?
‘…When I watched it as a movie, it really gave me chills.’
In the midst of society collapsing due to the zombie outbreak, everyone trying to preserve their humanity in their own way was truly captivating.
But to think he would be acting this out.
“You’ve seen this movie before, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then you should have a good sense of it. What role do you want to play?”
A role.
The answer to this had been decided from the moment he first received the script.
“I’ll do Hak-jun.”
Unlike Su-ho who burst out in indignation, Hak-jun responded with a calm attitude.
Su-ho’s Base Color was red. A color that seemed to symbolize the panic and sense of justice he was feeling. It was quite an eye-catching color.
Even so, the reason he chose Hak-jun was,
‘…Beautiful.’
Because Hak-jun’s Color Orb was the most beautiful color he had seen recently.
The Base Color of moonlight.
That somewhat cool yet elegant color captivated Seon-woo’s heart.
The character of Hak-jun that he felt through that Color Orb was… truly charming.
He was actually a charming character in the original work too.
“Yes. Then I’ll give you some time to analyze. Please let me know when you’re ready.”
“I think I can do it right now.”
“Right… now?”
Seo Jin-wook asked back as if incredulous. And for a moment, Seon-woo thought ‘oops.’
Should he have pretended to prepare a bit more?
But it was too late to take it back now. Seon-woo nodded his head.
“Yes. Let’s go right ahead.”
“…Well, sure then.”
Seo Jin-wook moistened his lips with his tongue.
An expression that said ‘you’ve really walked into this one.’ Seon-woo ignored such Seo Jin-wook and slowly raised his Color Orb.
Come to think of it, he had never acted in front of this many people before. When he was with Seon-jun, and when he was with Ji-hwan, it was always one-on-one.
But this time, there were almost a dozen pairs of eyes watching him.
Could he really act in front of all these people?
‘I have to.’
His insides felt all twisted up.
He could feel the piercing gazes directed at him.
It couldn’t be helped. Even if not as much as the man in front of him, none of them seemed particularly welcoming toward him.
He had to show them.
That he wasn’t a parachute.
“Open the door! Let’s open the door!”
That’s when Seo Jin-wook suddenly began delivering his lines.
At the same time, bright red color began blooming from Seo Jin-wook like flames.
Such an intense color that it made you completely forget the frivolous impression he’d shown just moments before. From his anxious face, from his outstretched fingertips, from his urgent cries, the color leaped up like flames and then died down.
It was a beautiful color.
But now wasn’t the time to admire it.
Seon-woo didn’t back down and burst his Color Orb.
And that was the moment.
The flames that had been approaching Seon-woo… began to be pushed back immediately by the cool moonlight that poured from his body.
“What are you talking about? Don’t you see the zombies behind us?”
* * *
“…To think he’d catch Jin-wook senior’s attention from the very start. That guy’s not having a smooth beginning either.”
Ye-chan sighed as he watched Seo Jin-wook, whose eyes were sparkling as he stared at Seon-woo the entire time.
Seo Jin-wook was actually the person that Cheongseong’s junior line found most uncomfortable. No, even beyond the junior line, there were quite a few people who found him uncomfortable.
His personality was just so eccentric.
With his mix of clumsy narcissism and sense of authority, he was always interfering here and there, so the juniors usually had two choices.
Either prostrate themselves completely and cater to Seo Jin-wook’s whims, or try their best not to catch his attention.
The problem was that despite all this, Seo Jin-wook’s acting skills were top-tier even within Cheongseong.
Perhaps it was because his natural energy was so fierce and intense. When acting opposite him, people often got swept up in Seo Jin-wook’s momentum.
Even sufficiently trained actors found dealing with Seo Jin-wook somewhat burdensome.
So…
“I’ll do Hak-jun.”
The moment Seon-woo chose Hak-jun, Ye-chan inwardly sighed.
He could already see the future where Seon-woo would get thoroughly beaten.
He could guess why Seon-woo had chosen Hak-jun.
Compared to Su-ho, Hak-jun was a calmer character, so he probably thought it would be easier to express.
But… that was a trap.
“Enduring Seo Jin-wook’s Su-ho with Hak-jun?”
“Not easy. He’ll probably get crushed right away.”
“Look how excited Seo Jin-wook is. He’s already thrilled at the thought of devouring the newcomer.”
Responding to intense acting with calm acting was never an easy task.
Especially when the opponent was Seo Jin-wook.
“Open the door! Let’s open the door!”
Seo Jin-wook’s acting was definitely explosive.
Acting that seemed ready to devour his opponent.
“His energy seems even stronger.”
“Is he excited because it’s a newcomer?”
Refreshing voice projection.
And a face that looked desperate, as if he would rush toward the door at any moment.
That face filled with anger, despair, and panic… it really made you wonder if this place wasn’t actually surrounded by zombies.
A moment that showed Seo Jin-wook was definitely a skilled actor.
‘Game over.’
Everyone nodded their heads.
It would be fortunate if he could even deliver his lines properly in front of that. He’d probably freeze up and not even be able to speak properly.
Right.
“What are you talking about? Don’t you see those zombies behind us right now?”
That’s definitely how it should be…
What is this.
‘…Huh?’
Why doesn’t that parachute seem intimidated at all right now?
“We’re doctors. Doctors who save lives! If we don’t open the door now, all those people will die!”
“If we open the door? Then the people inside here will die too.”
It was gentle acting that suited Hak-jun’s character.
But that didn’t mean it was acting without color.
“Then what! Are we just going to stand here and watch those people die? Just leave them alone?”
“Speak properly. It’s not about saving those people, but killing the people here.”
Hak-jun responds to Su-ho with a calm tone.
A solid and steadfast atmosphere, as if Su-ho’s impatience couldn’t dare affect him.
It really seemed like the character Hak-jun had jumped out of the movie.
Even though Seon-woo wasn’t quite as old as the character in the work, from his posture with hands clasped behind his back, his lifeless gaze, to the cynical smile that appeared from moment to moment… there wasn’t a single thing that wasn’t like Hak-jun.
It felt like a stubborn old doctor was right there before their eyes.
The troupe members’ mouths began to slowly fall open.
How?
Didn’t he say he hadn’t acted much before?
But how is he expressing himself like that?
It didn’t make sense.
Because what they had expected and the acting they were seeing before their eyes were so different.
“We have to do something… we have to do something! We’re doctors! Right? So how can you tell us to just stay here quietly?”
“This is doing something. Not opening that door. That’s our job. Understand?”
A low voice.
But perhaps because of the conviction contained in that voice.
Though the voice might be quiet, the person didn’t look small at all.
Rather, there was even a subtle sense of intimidation.
And it wasn’t just those watching who felt it.
Seo Jin-wook, who was directly acting opposite Seon-woo… felt like he had been hit in the back of the head.
He couldn’t help it.
It was acting he had deployed to somehow break Seon-woo’s spirit.
But what was the actual result?
‘…What the hell is this guy?’
Seo Jin-wook, who acted directly with him, could feel it.
Throughout the entire performance, he hadn’t been able to break Seon-woo’s momentum even once.
How?
The reason was obvious. Because Seon-woo’s acting was just as vivid. Because the Hak-jun that Seon-woo expressed was as alive as the Su-ho he had portrayed.
It didn’t make sense.
How could someone who had never properly acted before deliver such acting?
How on earth…
‘Damn….’
At that moment, an answer came to Seo Jin-wook’s mind.
Why the director had managed Seon-woo separately. Why he had suddenly placed someone who had never properly learned acting in the Acting Class.
A talent so unreasonable that it was hard to understand even when seeing it with his own eyes.
The Newcomer was a genius.
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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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Onefallenleaf
The script is good.
Thanks for the TL! 🍀