I’m an Unknown Actress, But Everyone Knows Me - Chapter 49
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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 49
I bit my lips tightly. My throat had been burning hot since earlier.
I swallowed down the emotions that were surging up inside me. Then I called out to Boksuni once more.
“Boksun…!”
I could feel the tip of my nose gradually turning red. Water droplets trickled down along my eyelashes.
I have to find her quickly. That was the only thought in my mind. Director So’s voice gradually became fainter.
“Cut…”
The same scene continued several more times from various angles. The check shirt I was wearing had been soaked through long ago. Meanwhile, Jeong Yeondu, who had even fallen down, was in a terrible state.
Even while Dokgo Gyeol was applying wound makeup to my cheek, I kept thinking about Boksuni who had been following me around.
Everything that Jeong Yeondu had seen, heard, and felt filled my head completely.
The dog catcher. Boksuni. A wedding invitation from a classmate who never usually contacted me, small plums, a corn basket, the village chief’s hat, a phone call with mom. What I wanted to take responsibility for…
“Yeoreum, be careful-.”
I climbed down a ladder into a pit that had been dug beforehand. The ladder was slippery because of my wet hands.
I caught my breath for a moment in the place that was completely blocked off by dirt. The damp smell of earth felt moist at the tip of my nose. Everything around me was hopeless.
I closed my eyes for a moment. Even though I knew the latter part of the scenario, it seemed like there was no one who would extend a hand to me, who was at rock bottom right now.
In this place that was completely dark, muddy, and suffocating. The useless Han Yeoreum, no, Jeong Yeondu had become alone.
Clack-!
The sound of the slate clapping felt distantly far away. I recognized it mentally, but my ears were ringing. I heard voices calling out the take number and scene number. Director So’s action sign as well. But I took a breath for a moment.
And.
“….”
I slowly opened my eyes.
Water streams from the water truck poured down like a torrential downpour. A puddle quickly formed inside the pit.
It was difficult enough to make my whole body tremble. I struggled to get up to resolve the situation.
My entire body was covered in mud. I picked up the flashlight that had fallen with me.
“….”
But no matter how many times I clicked and flipped the switch, it wouldn’t turn on. I was perfectly stranded in the dark pit.
Nothing was going right.
“…Why….”
My voice began to tremble. Only now did tears come that I couldn’t stop.
“Why am I always… always like this…”
My jaw muscles ached. It was the price of tensing up to avoid stuttering too much. I felt tears that had become lukewarm, mixed with the cold rainwater.
“No matter how hard I try, why am I always… alone.”
My fingertips were swollen from being soaked in the rain. My voice echoed softly in the pit.
“Why… I, I don’t care about anyone else…!”
The end of my voice cracked unpleasantly. Resentment oozed out thickly. I wanted to pour out my grievances on indiscriminate targets.
“Even when it wasn’t my business, I… I acted like it was all my business! Why do you guys put your own things first!!! No one, cares about me, no one cares about me… no one…”
The words I had wanted to say all along finally came out. They were words I had wanted to shout at least once to everyone who had received Jeong Yeondu’s help.
Even in the midst of this, the obsessive notion that I had to hold back my emotions seemed to press down on the back of my neck. I couldn’t even get angry freely.
“Then what about me…”
I lifted my head to look outside the pit. My vision blurred hazily.
The lighting on the crane was bright. It shone brightly like a completely different world from the place where Jeong Yeondu was stuck.
I bit my lips tightly. Hard enough for blood to seep out.
But then.
“Woof!”
Like a miracle, I heard the sound I had wanted to hear from beyond the pit.
“…Boksun?”
Boksuni up there was looking down at me.
The wet cotton ball panting heavily looked at me, not knowing what to do with joy. As if she had been looking for only me, waiting for only me.
Without realizing it, I couldn’t help but smile with my tear-stained face.
“Woof! Woof!”
Boksuni barked in a high voice as if talking to me. And from far away, I heard small voices.
“Village Chief-. Are you there?”
“That Boksuni is really something…”
They were people who had come to look for Jeong Yeondu. I, who had been dazed for a moment, could finally burst into tears.
“I, *sob*, I’m not the village chief…! I said I won’t do it…! Waaaah…!!!”
“Oh my. She’s crying because you misspoke, brother.”
“I didn’t know she hated being village chief that much…”
Was it because of the situation? The voices that I had only wanted to avoid until recently somehow became comforting.
Now there were people who would console me even when I cried. It was relief stemming from that fact.
I cried while roughly wiping away the rainwater with both hands.
Ding-!
A status window appeared saying that everyone on the film set had focused on me.
Only now did all my senses slowly return. The concentration that had been madly immersed in Jeong Yeondu’s emotions gradually faded.
“Yeoreum! Grab the rope and come up!”
“Don’t we need someone to support her from below?”
Above the pit, Director So and PD Hwang, Dokgo Gyeol and Dokgo Min. And even the extra actors were looking at me.
“Jeong Yeondu… you did so well…”
Director So smiled and extended her hand to me. I grabbed Director So with my hands that had turned pale white from the cold. Warm body heat was transmitted.
Right. I am Jeong Yeondu.
The protagonist of this drama.
Even after today’s filming ends, I can film again tomorrow. I became newly happy at that obvious fact.
The moment I was getting out of the pit,
Ding-!
Status windows appeared continuously, praising my acting. I smiled brightly while wrapped in a large towel.
* * *
The sound of insects chirping filled the night.
‘I can’t sleep.’
Dokgo Min couldn’t fall asleep. Looking down at Yeoreum who was sleeping soundly beside her, Dokgo Min was caught in a strange feeling.
‘How does she do that?’
The acting that Yeoreum had shown earlier was stuck in her eyes and wouldn’t disappear.
The face that cried sadly, saying no one was looking for her. Even over the face that had been soaked by the water truck, clear tear tracks were visible. Dokgo Min left the lodging.
“…Couldn’t sleep?”
“Director, you’re not sleeping either.”
Dokgo Min found Director So smoking in front of the lodging. As if she couldn’t sleep either, cigarette butts were piled up in the ashtray.
“I can’t… sleep.”
“Me too.”
“Right, when you see something like that… you can’t fall asleep. You know? Quickly, even just a little faster… you want to see the results.”
The unique adrenaline of creative people seemed to dominate my entire body. The moments when pieced-together scenes would reach perfect completion kept becoming clearer and clearer in my mind.
“When we film in Seoul… come watch then too.”
“….”
“That way when you work on the still cuts… you’ll be able to preserve the exact feeling you received today. Not just photos with good aesthetics… but so people can understand something beyond the photograph…”
Director So had cleverly rearranged the filming schedule. She had readjusted the timing by switching the front and back of the drama. So the dry city scenes could be filmed after the location shoot.
Jeong Yeondu would appear in the gray city when she felt a bit more fatigue from outdoor filming and had subtly lost some weight.
“Let’s do well, us…”
Director So said with determination as she stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray.
“The emotions we felt today… let’s make the viewers feel all of that too…”
Left alone, Dokgo Min once again reflected on Han Yeoreum from earlier.
Jeong Yeondu, who had been forcibly suppressing her emotions alone, trying to swallow them back down without being able to properly let them burst out. Even so, the sobbing that leaked out was vivid.
Ding-!
A Status Window appeared above sleeping Yeoreum’s pillow.
The two Status Windows that appeared simultaneously sparkled and shone light on Yeoreum.
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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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