The Genius Actor Who Lives Twice - Chapter 30

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

Episode 30

Gijun’s scene required him to play Minwoo, a young actor who passes the audition of his dreams only to be cast aside on set when he fails to prove his worth.

“Really? I passed the audition? For real? Thank you! Thank you so much!”

As Gijun took the call, his face lit up with the clear, wonder-struck smile of a child.
His feet bounced with unbridled joy, and his jaw trembled faintly with emotion.
He was the very picture of an unknown actor who felt as though he’d won the entire world with a single audition callback.

“A serial killer role? Of course I can do it! Trust me! Leave it to me! Phew…… Yes! How long has it been since I’ve passed an audition?!”

His pure joy was so radiant that those watching felt their own lips curve upward.
But that brilliant warmth died out in a single breath, crashing down with cruelty.
Gijun’s neck convulsed, and the light in his eyes went dark and dead.
The moment on set when he failed to demonstrate his skill and the director abandoned him.

“I’m sorry, Director. If you’d just give me one more chance…… What? Another actor? But I was supposed to be cast…… Director, I’ll study harder. I’ll prepare all night and come back. Please. Don’t cut me from this.”

In an instant, he became a broken actor.
His voice was desperate, his breathing unsteady with panic.
The loss of a leading role he’d dreamed of.
A young man who had even swallowed his pride to hold onto his single part now knelt and begged.

‘Wretched. Good. Though he doesn’t quite look like someone who’d commit murder….’

It was around this moment that Professor An Chiwon formed the thought.

“……So I had to become a real serial killer?”

Gijun’s eyes shifted.
The first thing visible was the emptiness in his gaze.

“A real serial killer.”

Transfixed by those words, Gijun stood motionless and vacant.

“If he were a real serial killer.”

Then slowly, a peculiar madness began to bloom in his pupils.

“He wouldn’t look like this.”

The abject posture of a man on his knees, begging pathetically, began to transform.

“A serial killer wouldn’t prowl around here, hesitating. His eyes would have to be darker, colder. His shoulders, his gait, the very way he treads on the ground—it would all have to change….”

With each muttered word, a murderous intent seeped through.
Gijun’s entire frame shifted subtly.
His hunched shoulders rolled back and settled, and his energized footsteps began to drag slowly across the floor.
A doomed actor, driven mad by the director’s gaslighting and hunger for approval, was devouring his own soul with his own hands—an ugly metamorphosis into a genuine monster.
The pitiable young man from moments before had vanished without a trace.
As his presence drew slowly closer, Professor An Chiwon found himself drawing in a sharp, involuntary breath.

“……Okay, cut.”

If Professor Im Hyeonshik had not stopped his performance, Professor An Chiwon would have stood transfixed, staring at Gijun for far longer.
As Gijun’s performance ended, Professor An Chiwon and Professor Im Hyeonshik fell silent for a moment, their eyes meeting.

“Hold on—let us discuss this for a moment.”

The two men stepped into a different Classroom and spoke with candid honesty about the performances.
Professor Im Hyeonshik was the first to speak.

“Kim Suho is rock solid. From beginning to end, he was a killer. Intense, undeniably so.”

Professor Im Hyeonshik took Kim Suho’s side.

“But wasn’t Gijun’s Acting also excellent? That yearning from his early days—the desperation. As the one who wrote the Script, he expressed it remarkably well. His skill remains formidable.”

Professor An Chiwon defended Gijun.
In their one-on-one exchange, both professors tried to persuade each other.

“Is that so? I’ve seen Gijun’s intense Acting so often that today felt rather subdued by comparison.”

Gijun had shown the process of transformation into a killer; Suho had shown the result of becoming one.
Because of this, the raw intensity that Suho’s Acting conveyed was inevitably stronger.

“An ordinary young man’s desperation for a Role becomes obsession, ultimately driving him to murder—what we saw was only part of that journey. Looking at the whole arc, Gijun executed it with far greater nuance.”
“I believe Kim Suho is the better fit. Frankly, wasn’t he too ordinary to be a killer? From the start, I would have preferred something darker in his nature—something fundamentally different from an everyday person.”
“No. That’s precisely why I admired it. Watching an ordinary boy transform into a killer. That was the intention—to show the process itself.”

The two professors remained deadlocked, neither yielding an inch.

“They approached the same Role entirely differently. Kim Suho performed the outcome. Gijun performed the transformation. I think it would serve you well to accept that distinction.”
“But Kim Suho commanded conviction from his very first line. I was certain he would commit murder.”
“And?”
“Professor, this is a Short Film—only a few minutes long. It’s insufficient time to show Gijun’s transformation. Kim Suho is the better choice.”

Professor An Chiwon fell silent for a moment.
Gijun certainly acted well.
Every bit as well as Kim Suho, who had fifteen years of experience.

“We should also consider mastery of the Shooting Location. Which actor do you think will improve more once we’re on-set?”
“Acting isn’t a matter of experience. And don’t you already know, having seen all of Gijun’s performances to date?”
“It would certainly be a waste not to cast Gijun. But the strength that comes from experience cannot be dismissed lightly.”

Professor An Chiwon exhaled deeply.
Was he always this stubborn?
Yet the Professor had a point—Kim Suho did seem more likely to excel on-set.
And Gijun, lacking experience, would surely have much to learn from Kim Suho during filming.

“…Very well. Let’s decide on Suho then.”

The two returned to the others.
Just as they were about to announce the Audition results—

“The Role of Minwoo should go to Gijun.”

Kim Suho surrendered his Role.

* * *

Kim Suho reflected on Gijun’s performance that day.

‘A monstrous talent, indeed.’

In truth, this was not the first time Kim Suho had witnessed Gijun’s Acting.
I’d seen Gijun practicing through the glass window outside the Practice Studio.

“When you stab someone with a blade, what does it feel like? The blood. Do you crave it? That rush of superiority when people collapse and beg. Hahaha! Yes, that’s exactly what the Director meant—this exhilaration.”

The intensity of Gijun’s voice and the gleam in his eyes pouring through that window had left Kim Suho with a chill running down his spine.

‘So there’s an actor like this among the unknowns?’

That performance lingered with Kim Suho like an afterimage.
Even when he analyzed the role of Minwoo, the root of inspiration at the bottom of it all unwittingly traced back to Gijun.
And unlike himself, who moved through countless shooting locations, Gijun remained alone in the Practice Studio night after night, carving away at himself.
His desperation for the role itself was singular.
So after the Audition today, when the professors stepped into another room to discuss, a question formed in Kim Suho’s mind.

‘What if that actor played the part I just did—that perfectionist madness? What would it look like?’

Kim Suho acted on the thought immediately.

“Gijun.”
“Yes?”
“Would you be able to show me that part I just performed—in your acting?”

Gijun’s confusion lasted only a moment.
Before Kim Suho, Baek Arin, and Han Seohyun, he performed the same scene Kim Suho had just done.
And watching Gijun’s performance, Kim Suho admitted it.
While he would surpass Gijun in other roles, there was no one who could match him for this character, Minwoo.

* * *

After the Audition ended, all the roles were finally assigned.
I took the role of Minwoo; Kim Suho took Jintae.
The Director role was originally supposed to go to Baek Arin, but Han Seohyun expressed wanting to do it late, so he had to audition for it too.

“How many times are you going to give me a No Good? It’s the same every time! Are you messing with me? You didn’t even practice, did you?”

Han Seohyun crumpled the Script in his hand and hurled it to the floor.
His breathing trembled as he suppressed his rage; his mouth twitched microscopically; his eyes blazed as though violence might spill out any second.
His acting had deepened.
The timid Han Seohyun I’d known seemed to have vanished.
He’d always been capable, but never to this degree.
Had something happened in such a short span to transform him like this?
Suddenly, I recalled something Han Seohyun had said days ago after class ended.

—”Hey, um. Thanks for covering as group leader instead of me. And, thanks to you I got admitted. This time I’m going to try to be helpful to you.”
—”Yeah, okay. I’m heading out.”
—”Wait. I wanted to ask you something about the role.”

That’s when Han Seohyun asked how to play a character different from himself, and I’d answered him like this.

—”Find someone around you who’s most like the character you’re playing, or go to a place where people like that gather.”
—”Um, what?”
—”So your director role is hot-blooded and outspoken, right? You know a place where people like that would go? Go there, observe them, and absorb their speech patterns and gestures into your body.”

And watching Han Seohyun’s performance today, I could tell where he’d been.

“Hey, you idiot! Why would a murderer put so much force into it and jab like that? Relax your shoulders, you bastard!”

He must have gone to the Police Station where his brother Han Seojin, an Inspector, works.
He’d seen people yelling like that there.
Han Seohyun probably didn’t realize it.
That I carried a business card belonging to Han Seojin, a police captain, in my wallet.
In the end, it was Han Seohyun who claimed the director role after the audition.

“Well. Can’t be helped. I’ll handle the filming.”

Baek Arin accepted the result without complaint and stepped back.

* * *

“Do you have a moment?”

The day Han Seohyun’s audition ended.

“Let’s grab some coffee.”

Kim Suho pulled me aside.
We sat across from each other at a cafe on the Campus.
People passing by glanced at Kim Suho and whispered to each other about the celebrity.
But he paid no mind to such things and sipped his milk.

“Where did you learn acting, anyway? A private academy? Or through your Agency?”
“Just… picked it up along the way, learning through experience.”
“It seems you’ve done quite a number of projects?”

I’d done plenty of work as an extra and in minor roles with little screen time.
But now I had only one piece — Shipwreck — and even that was still in Post-production, not yet released.

“I’ve filmed one project, but I’ve been practicing hard in the meantime.”
“I know that well. You’re always the first to arrive at the Practice Studio and the last to leave — that’s you, Gijun.”

Was I?

“Regardless, your Acting ability is quite impressive. As you gradually take on more projects with substantial roles, it’ll only be a matter of time before you become famous.”

He paused, took a slow sip of his milk, set the cup down, and then looked directly at me with resolve in his eyes.

“For that to happen, you’ll need an Agency. How do you feel about ours?”

An unexpected offer had come my way.

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