I’m an Unknown Actress, But Everyone Knows Me - Chapter 186

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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 186

“Thank you. I only practiced the lines in the script.”

Don’t talk to me as time passes! Director Ja tapped the script with his pen.

He seemed to be pondering what to do for the last sentence.

Please.

“Then lastly, let’s each say this part once and finish. Ju Ye?”

Just one sentence.

“You sound like a local, a local!”

“Of course, since I’ve been active in Japan for several years.”

When he said it was the last part, the tension among the nearby judges seemed to ease as they each started talking. They were eager to praise Gi Juye with every word.

Now the remaining usage time for the item was only 20 seconds.

I had to speak the sentence slowly anyway. It was tight.

“Then Yeoreum too.”

As soon as Director Ja finished speaking, I opened my mouth.

“あの、のなんだって、(That flower is a pear blossom,)”

Though unintended, my voice trembled at the end.

“テソクにえてあげたかったのに。。(I wanted to tell Taeseok about it….)”

That day, Huijae learns the name of the flower she saw. But she deliberately doesn’t tell Taeseok about it.

Instead, she chooses to wait until the next season when pear blossoms bloom. If he doesn’t know, Taeseok will be her friend for a whole year.

Lonely Rio. Rio who is neither a Japanese nor a Joseon person. Rio who doesn’t even feel suffocated by the tight, constricting kimono that binds her waist.

These were the words such a Rio muttered to herself as she left Taeseok.

“Yes. Script reading finished.”

The script reading ended just as the usage time expired. It was before I could even sigh in relief.

“Now we’ll move on to character analysis.”

Director Ja’s test didn’t end here.

‘No, rather this is where it really begins.’

The timing had come to clearly widen the gap.

‘Character analysis is what I do best.’

* * *

“Why did Huijae ask Taeseok about the flower’s name?”

As expected. Gi Juye recited the interpretation her acting trainer had given her.

“Huijae is still young, and having come to Joseon following her father, she would have known that whether she liked it or not, she would have to live here for a long time.”

When Huijae, with her weak body, got off the ship after a long voyage and boarded a carriage with unsteady steps, instead of the vast ocean she had been seeing all along, white flowers caught her eye.

“So she had to find something to love in Joseon. Among all that, flowers were the first thing that caught her eye.”

“She must have seen other things too, right?”

Director Ja caught the tail end of her words. His genius-like dogmatic personality stood out. His tone suggested it was natural for others to know what he knew.

Gi Juye steadied her breathing.

“Before that, she would have been on the ship. Huijae, who had always stayed at home, would have been curled up from seasickness. Even when getting off the ship, she was carried by her nurse to the carriage.”

Everyone vaguely pictured Huijae at Gi Juye’s words.

“In the back seats, when Huijae opened her eyes while lying down, only the blue sky, just like in Kobe, would have spread out in her view. So much so that she couldn’t tell whether this was Japan or Joseon.”

To Huijae, whose mouth was bitter from vomiting several times due to seasickness,

“Then at some point, she would have seen white flowering trees through the window. So she decided to love that. Ah, this is where Joseon begins. She would have felt it was real.”

The white pear blossoms under the blue sky spreading beyond the car window must have been sweet. Huijae, who found a place to set her heart in Joseon, would have kept those flowers in her eyes for a long time.

“Huijae also knew she was Joseon people, and she would have felt moved to have arrived at a place where people of her own blood lived.”

“Right, then what about you, Yeoreum?”

To Director Ja’s question, Han Yeoreum gave a completely different answer.

“She asked on purpose because she wanted to talk to anyone. Since she didn’t know much about Joseon, she thought it was a safe conversation topic.”

It was completely different from Gi Juye’s interpretation. Director Ja caught the tail end again.

“Why? How so? Even though Huijae is shy and has no friends?”

“Huijae came from the so-called Naichi to Gaichi. Everything she sees would be old-fashioned.”

It was a shocking answer. Ji Haebeom, who had been leaning against the backrest, slowly leaned toward the desk. His upper body bent forward.

The Yeonhuijae that Gi Juye had just shown them was erased.

A Huijae looking at a dark, cloudy sky instead of a blue sky was born.

A Huijae who had arrived in gloomy, poor Joseon from bright, cheerful Japan.

“Huijae, who had only seen good things, expensive things, precious things at the main house, hates Joseon where she first set foot. Wouldn’t anyone feel that way when they have to put down roots in a space where they feel the gap?”

“Hating Joseon, you say….”

Director Ja drew out his words.

“To be precise, Huijae’s father, Mr. Hanamura.”

Oh, this was a direction I hadn’t thought of.

“Since her father showed violence when things went wrong even when enjoying only good, expensive, precious things in Naichi, Huijae would have been swept up in even greater anxiety in the backward Gaichi. Huijae would have immediately noticed the inferiority complex her father would feel due to the keenly felt gap.”

It was an interpretation as if she had really felt it from Yeonhuijae’s perspective.

Something only a mind that understood a father worse than a dog could accomplish.

“Ah, now father’s violence will become even worse in this place.”

Han Yeoreum almost snatched away the telescope he was holding and changed the angle at will.

Director Ja’s field of vision was changing rapidly.

‘This won’t do. I can’t hand over the initiative to a green rookie.’

He immediately changed the topic. Looking at Gi Juye, Director Ja asked.

“Then what do pear blossoms symbolize to Huijae?”

“Pure white first love. An untainted, complete heart.”

A textbook answer came back. Now it was Han Yeoreum’s turn to answer.

Han Yeoreum again changed direction at will. Then click. She pulled the telescope’s lens closer to the subject.

“A cautious pretext. To try talking to Taeseok.”

One side emotion, one side calculation. The gap between pure first love and Yeonhuijae’s mere curiosity began to widen.

Director Ja and Han Yeoreum both put strength in their grip. It was an intense battle competing to frame things in the direction each wanted.

“What was Huijae’s heart like when she first talked with Taeseok?”

Gradually both questions and answers began to speed up.

“Since she had no opportunity to interact with anyone her age, she feels shyness with a heart white as a canvas. Because she’s a pure teenage girl.”

The red Huijae said that, and,

“Huijae, who has a Joseon father who is both a merchant and an adopted son-in-law, would have grown up reading the room and calculating profit. As a concubine’s child, Huijae keenly grasped that her environment had changed, and unlike at the main house where surveillance was strict, she would have judged that she could make friends here.”

The white Huijae said this.

The clarity of what was drawn was different from Gi Juye, who gave textbook answers anyone could give from reading the script.

In an instant, the telescope became a microscope, and Han Yeoreum made it possible to grasp the three-dimensional appearance of Huijae in detail at once.

“Being able to make friends, you say…. According to Yeoreum’s interpretation, Huijae hates Joseon, so why would she want friends here? Wouldn’t it be normal to hope to return to Japan while cutting off contact with the outside world? Anyone would feel that way if dropped in a backward place where they can’t even communicate properly, right?”

Director Ja probed sensitively, and,

“She was lonely all along.”

Han Yeoreum deflected.

“Wouldn’t Huijae, who hated Joseon, grow to love this place because of Taeseok, who became her first friend…. I think so. Something that doesn’t exist in Japan but exists in Joseon. Her father’s worsening violence, in that completely unfamiliar and worn place, the only thing of value.”

The tide of victory was already turning. The clarity of Yeonhuijae that Han Yeoreum showed was of a different class.

She was expressing even the texture of the character’s emotions in fine detail.

“Because of that, I believe she would have developed a desire to put down roots in Joseon. Perhaps through that catalyst, she might have even come to love the country of Joseon.”

Without realizing it, one of the investors who had been picturing the Joseon that Yeonhuijae saw hurriedly interjected.

“No, but the pear blossoms throw such a beautiful message throughout this entire !”

No matter how they thought about it, it seemed difficult to accept using pear blossoms merely as a pretext for first love.

“That’s right. The pear blossoms do serve as a connection point between the two, but to call them a pretext is a bit…”

Then the supporters nearby nodded their heads. They were all investors on Gi Juye’s side. Ji Haebeom looked at Han Yeoreum with an intrigued gaze.

“Right. I’ll acknowledge that. The pear blossoms could potentially become a negative image, couldn’t they? The first thing successful Gi Taeseok does is plant pear trees in his Western House? How will you explain this? What if the viewers can’t accept it?”

Director Ja pressed Han Yeoreum again. He bombarded her with question marks with an excited expression. Even so, Han Yeoreum spoke calmly.

“I actually think Huijae wouldn’t have liked those flowers she saw in Joseon very much.”

It was another shocking statement. Before he knew it, Ji Haebeom had uncrossed his arms.

“Why? How so? Even though they were one of the few ‘mediators similar to the Kobe environment’ that could be seen in old and shabby Joseon?”

“…Because the only places where you could see pear blossoms in Joseon were the homes of pro-Japanese collaborators.”

Han Yeoreum had struck a vital point.

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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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