The Genius Actor Who Lives Twice - Chapter 1

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

Episode 1

“Hmm, not bad.”

An audition hall somewhere in Seoul.
The moment the director knitted his brow, the staff members beside him chimed in one by one.

“The acting’s solid, but there are so many talented people these days….”
“Right.”
“The question is whether they fit the character….”

Their gazes pierced through me all at once.

“I may be lacking, but if you’d give me the chance, I’ll do my very best!”

The words came from my own mouth, yet they didn’t suit me at all.
I sounded like a fresh recruit pleading for a shot at corporate life.

“Where’s anyone without passion these days?”
“You graduated from a provincial university’s Acting program, and you don’t have a single substantial role under your belt. Honestly, this barely qualifies as a filmography.”
“And most of all, your face….”

That again.

“That scar on your face isn’t something makeup can hide.”

I have a scar.
A hideous mark that runs from my forehead across the bridge of my nose and down my cheek in a single, unbroken line.
This one scar, born from an accident when I was twenty-one, has utterly destroyed my career as an actor.

“We’ll be in touch. You can go.”

Another rejection.
I trudged out of the audition hall and boarded the Subway. Today, like every other day, countless actors on the car’s advertisements promoted dramas and films.
We were all actors, but we weren’t the same.
Not the world we lived in, not the roles we were given.
Not any of it.
Ding—
By the time I’d reached the Goshiwon, a text message arrived.

—Thank you for auditioning.
Unfortunately, we won’t be able to work together this time.
We look forward to meeting you in our next project.

That phrase—”we look forward”—kept me from abandoning hope entirely.
I’d received messages like this well over ten thousand times, yet I never grew numb to them.

“What are you doing out here? Get inside.”

I lifted my head at the familiar voice.
Sleeveless shirt and shorts. It was Kim, who lived in the room next to mine at the Goshiwon.

“One drink tonight?”

Kim held up a plastic bag containing several bottles of makgeolli.

“I’m in.”

* * *

[Being an actor has been truly difficult at times. I think I was able to reach this place because I kept moving forward, one step at a time, without stopping.]

On the television, an actor was giving an acceptance speech for Best Male Actor.
There was a time, years ago, when I’d shared a theatrical stage with him.
Back then I played a minor role, and he was the lead—though it wasn’t as though that had been any different from now.
Even if I’d been the director, I would have cast him instead of me.
Acting, after all, is about what people see, and there’s no reason to cast someone who inspires revulsion when you don’t have to. It was only natural.

“If only the scar weren’t there….”
“What?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”

Kim, who’d been watching the television, studied me carefully. It seemed he had something he wanted to say.

“Ki Jun, you’ll have your moment on a stage like that someday, won’t you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”

I’d walked this path looking only at Acting since I stepped onto a theatrical stage by chance in middle school.
Over all those years, many things had changed.
No—to be precise, I’d remained the same. It was the world around me that had shifted.

“Why is our actor Ki Jun sounding so dispirited tonight of all nights?”
“I’m feeling a bit down today.”
“…Did you bomb another audition because of the scar?”

Instead of answering, I took a sip of makgeolli.
As if rain were coming, the scar throbbed dully in that peculiar way it always did.

“You can act, you’ve got a handsome face—what’s some scar?”
“There just weren’t roles that suited me, I suppose.”
“Then audition for gangster roles.”
“I’ve tried that. They didn’t pick me.”

I’d auditioned for gangster roles over a hundred times.

—”Your voice is too sweet for this role. The scar is menacing, but your face is so gentle that it doesn’t quite work….”

Over a hundred rejection messages had come back for gangster roles alone.

“It’s not like the scar came from doing something wrong.”
“Bias is bias, though, even so.”

I’d visited several cosmetic surgery clinics to have the scar removed, but they all said it was impossible to erase completely.
Some even said that because the facial expression muscles were distributed across the scar’s path, the risk of losing the ability to make facial expressions was high, and surgery wasn’t recommended.
An actor who couldn’t make expressions.
It was better to live with the scar.

“Damn. People really don’t know how to see.”
“Just pour another round.”

Back in university, that single glass after a theater performance had been so sweet.
But tonight, the drink tasted only bitter.
By the time Kim and I had finished two bottles of makgeolli and five bottles of soju, I could hear the sound of rain beginning to fall outside.

“Huh… I’ve lived for thousands of years and seen all kinds of humans, but you’re the first as frustratingly stubborn as you.”
“He’s drunk.”

When Kim got drunk, he always said the strangest things.
He’d spouted nonsense about being a deity who once worked under the Jade Emperor, about having lived in the human realm for thousands of years.
He’d delivered the kind of stories you’d find in web novels with the casual confidence of someone utterly convinced.
Looking at him, the man clearly hadn’t grown up any more than I had.

“Hiccup… so if you went back to the past, you’d still want to be an actor?”
“If you’re drunk, just go to bed gracefully.”

Kim brushed off my words lightly and took another sip of Makgeolli.

“You were a good student back in school. If you’d gone into science or engineering with grades like yours, you’d probably be making some real money at a conglomerate by now.”
“I don’t have that kind of ability.”

I laughed it off on the surface, but something in me hesitated for a moment.

‘If I’d been an ordinary office worker instead of a struggling actor.’

It was a thought I’d entertained long before Kim brought it up.
The day I moved into the Goshiwon because money was tight, the night my father passed away, worn down by poverty.
There were even times I’d lingered for tens of minutes outside a certification exam academy.
Shouldn’t I take a different path while I still could?
Wasn’t I still standing on the wrong road?
But the conclusion was always the same.

“I’ll never give up.”

A surge of emotion made me take another sip of Soju.
The Goshiwon sign outside the window flickered dimly.

“Do you know why most actors keep going even though they earn less than convenience store workers?”
“Why?”

Then the window caught my eye.
The alleyway below the streetlight, soaked by rain.
A long streak of light bent across the wet asphalt.
It looked just like a spotlight on a stage.

“Because when I’m acting, I feel alive. There’s this moment when fire blazes right through the center of my chest.”

The sound of rain outside the window grew fiercer.

“I’ve come this far for that one thing.”

Kim looked at me for a moment, then let out a soft laugh.
He pulled out a bottle of Wine from somewhere and set it down on the table with a thud.
The logo on the bottle neck read ‘TIME’ upside down.

“This is really rare stuff. I’ve been thinking for thousands of years about who deserved it, and I finally found the right person today.”
“I’m a Soju person. Give that to someone else.”
“Come on, an elder is offering! This is genuinely precious — not everyone gets to drink it.”

Despite my protests, Kim tilted the bottle and poured Wine into a glass.
The reddish-brown liquid filled the glass, catching the light.

“Drink it.”

I picked up the glass and swallowed a sip of the lustrous liquid.

“Ugh, what’s the alcohol content? This is way too strong.”
“That’s how it is.”

Maybe my body can’t handle expensive alcohol. I’m not used to it.

“Kim, I think cheap liquor suits me better…”

Suddenly the world before my eyes grew hazy.
It felt like sinking deep beneath water.
Kim was saying something, but his words didn’t register properly.
I instinctively opened my eyes wide, trying to cling to my fading consciousness.

“Kim…?”

His loose sleeveless shirt had changed.
He wore an expensive-looking suit and his hair was neatly combed back.
The stubble that had grown wild across his jaw was now cleanly groomed.
He carried an air of dignity.

“You’ll do well.”

In that moment, a thought struck me suddenly.
What if I had no scar?

“There’s only one chance.”

If I could be judged only on my acting, not my scar.

“This time, really live.”

Would I have been able to become someone radiant then?
Whoooosh—
The sound of rain from outside the window struck my ears.

* * *

“Number 127.”

My eyes opened at the sound of a man’s voice.
But it wasn’t the moldy-stained ceiling of my Goshiwon that greeted me as it did every morning.
What I saw first was a mirror covering an entire wall and people in their early twenties standing beside me.

“Huh?”

My body felt strangely light.
As I approached the floor-to-ceiling glass window, a familiar face looked back at me from beyond the glass.
A rigid posture. A firm build.
Skin flawless and unblemished.

“The scar is gone…”

It wasn’t the kind of scar that could be hidden by my part, but just to be sure, I lifted my hair to check.

“It’s really gone.”

Was this… a dream?
Were lucid dreams always this vivid?
If this wasn’t a dream, nothing made sense.
I was still staring blankly at my face when—

“…Am I supposed to just accept losing my inheritance? Because I’m a bastard son? Because my blood is lowborn?”

A voice came from behind me.
When I turned around, men who looked to be about twenty were muttering to themselves while staring into empty space.

“…Today I did something cowardly—I killed this seagull. I’m offering it to you. It won’t be long before I end up the same way.”
“Trying to convince with words… I was foolish. This is how it should’ve been from the start.”
“This isn’t a matter to bring to a lawyer. They tend to be quite strict about such things.”

Everyone performing in front of mirrors—this familiar sight.
An audition hall?
A hollow laugh escaped me.
Rejected from an audition, and now I was dreaming of another audition hall.

“Number 127, are you here?”

At the male voice from inside the door, I looked around, and everyone’s eyes turned toward me at once.
The yellow paper attached to my left chest came into focus.

127.

“If Number 127 doesn’t appear, I’ll mark you as disqualified.”

At those words, I shouted instinctively.

“Number 127, I’m here!”
“Good projection. This way.”

The man led me somewhere.
After passing through several spaces that looked like lecture halls, we entered a room.

“It’s right behind the stage, so please don’t practice too loudly.”

I nodded silently.
My attention moved from the man’s words to the logo imprinted on his chest.

KAU
Korean Arts University School of Drama – Department of Acting

The place that has produced more acclaimed actors than anywhere else in South Korea.
The Korean Arts University School of Drama – Department of Acting.
Then this wasn’t an audition hall—it was an entrance examination venue?
Korean Arts University School of Drama – Department of Acting was also where I’d applied after being discharged from the military.
I’d been eliminated in the First Round Examination.
What a cruel dream.
I looked at the mirror in front of me.
The scar was still gone.
It was a cruelly sweet dream.
The moment I’d wanted most was right before my eyes.

“Number 127, you may enter the stage now.”

Yes—if all of this is a dream, let me perform on stage just once with a face unmarred by scars.
I moved slowly following the man’s guidance.
Beyond the black curtain, the stage came into view.

“Exhale.”

All of this would be a dream.
A dream that would vanish when I opened my eyes.
A dream I’d always wanted.
That day, the curtain rose on my life once more.

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