The Genius Actor Who Lives Twice - Chapter 32

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 32

On one corner of the Korea National University of Arts campus, Kim Su-ho had arranged the film equipment he’d borrowed.
The equipment was divided into two sets for different purposes.
The first belonged to Baek A-rin, who would be filming.
The second had been set up by Persona to direct the shooting on location.

“Thanks so much for helping with the filming, Min-woo, Da-hye, and Min-gi.”

Several students from the Acting Department who would play nameless staff roles without any dialogue were present as well.

“Come on, unni. Of course we would. You bought us drinks last time, after all.”

Shin Da-hye smiled brightly as she spoke.

“We were curious when we heard you were shooting a short film anyway.”

Jae-min’s words drew a nod from Min-gi.
In truth, they had all come to see Kim Su-ho act.
On screen, Kim Su-ho was always unmatched.
His performances had drawn endless praise—the way he choked the breath from his audience, wringing out genuine tremors.
But would his acting be equally overwhelming to witness in person on set?
Perhaps what reached the screen was only a single take salvaged after dozens of NGs, or a performance refined through meticulous editing.
It was a small doubt they each harbored in their hearts.
In truth, it stemmed from a hope that the gap between themselves and this distant-seeming actor wasn’t as vast as it appeared.

“Where’s Kim Su-ho, anyway?”
“He said he’d run through some practice in the rehearsal room. We’re supposed to call when everything’s ready.”

As Baek A-rin had said, Kim Su-ho was in the rehearsal room of the Theater School Building.
He paused his practice and recalled Yeon Gi-jun’s performance that he’d witnessed before at Baek A-rin’s apartment.

‘I thought he’d seem subdued on location, but instead he grew wings in front of the camera.’

First came the exhilaration of having encountered a genuinely skilled actor.
Then came the burn—the realization that he hadn’t surpassed that actor. Kim Su-ho felt the heat of rivalry kindle within him.
What had his fifteen years of acting amounted to?
What gap, exactly, existed between that actor and himself?
Through the glass window, he could see Baek A-rin checking equipment and directing the set.
Kim Su-ho exhaled deeply, pushing air all the way from the pit of his chest.
Today would be the first time he’d matched his acting against students from Korea National University of Arts.
He crumpled the script in his hand, then straightened his gaze—eyes cool and tempered.
He needed to make Yeon Gi-jun feel exactly what he himself had felt.

Scene 1.
Min-woo, playing a serial killer.
Gi-jun stood before the camera wearing the Character of “Min-woo.”

“Is it all right to kill someone?”

The words themselves were chilling, yet the voice that left Min-woo’s lips sounded fragile.

“The thought just came to me. So I planned it out.”

His delivery trembled, at odds with the script.
Min-woo opened his eyes wide with intensity, as if determined to display some tremendous killing intent.
He clenched his jaw and twisted his lips into a grotesque sneer, but it was nothing more than the clumsy gestures of an actor who couldn’t act—a display of nervousness and impatience rather than madness.
Cheap acting that merely mimicked the surface.

“Cut! Hey, Min-woo. Have you never played a serial killer before? Why does it look so fake?”

Han Seo-hyun, taking on the role of director with his cap pulled low, snapped irritably.

“There’s no venom in your eyes, no venom at all!”
“I’m sorry, Director. If you’d just give me another chance….”
“What? Another chance? Are you joking? How many NGs have you done? It’s all the same! You didn’t rehearse, did you?”
“No, I did… I did, but… I got nervous.”
“Tch. This is why you don’t cast beginners.”

Watching this, Han Seo-hyun and Yeon Gi-jun’s classmates were taken aback.

‘Was there someone in our cohort who could act this well?’

Han Seo-hyun, snapping water bottles with irritation and commanding the set with his loud, resonant voice.
It was impossible to imagine him as the same person who usually kept a low profile and made no impression whatsoever.

“That’s enough. I’m calling someone else, so get out.”
“What? Another actor? But I thought I was cast for this… Director, I’ll study harder. I’ll prepare through the night and come back tomorrow. Please. Don’t cut me.”

Min-woo fell to his knees with a sense of injustice and sorrow, grasping at the director’s ankle and pleading.
But all that came back was cold disdain.
The director threw the script he was holding at Min-woo’s chest and shoved him out.

“Okay, cut!”

At Baek A-rin’s word, the scene ended.
Gi-jun, who had been kneeling on the floor and clutching the director’s ankle in desperation, steadied his breathing and rose to his feet.
As he brushed dust from his pants, his eyes were no longer those of ‘Min-woo,’ shining with pitiful supplication.
He had returned completely to his original self—Yeon Gi-jun, rational and composed.
The classmates rubbed their arms, which had broken out in goosebumps, and clicked their tongues.

“We saw Gi-jun practicing often in the studio, so we already knew he was good….”
“But his acting gets even better on set.”
“That guy’s talent is seriously vicious.”

Among the classmates marveling at the performance, a man with an exotic, angular face and a weighty presence walked in silently.

“Wait a moment.”

The man with the slightly raspy voice was Kim Su-ho.
Unfamiliar with such a cold and dark aura emanating from him, the classmates hastily made way without daring to speak to him.
Kim Su-ho approached Gi-jun, stopped before him, and opened his mouth with eyes that had grown distant and cold.

“Your acting just now was better than at the audition.”

Without waiting for Gi-jun’s response, Kim Su-ho moved straight toward the center of the set.
He carried himself with professional pride, and the defiance and venom of someone who had just met a true rival.
Watching the taut spark created by the two actors, Baek A-rin, who was directing, felt her lips curve upward with satisfaction.

“All right, let’s move on to the next scene! Jin-tae, who pushes Min-woo aside and takes over the serial killer role!”

The camera catches Kim Su-ho’s footsteps first.
He was trying to claim as his own the space where Min-woo’s despair and afterimage still lingered.
Measured gait, unwavering posture, a cold aura that subdued the confused energy of the set in an instant.

“Oh, Jin-tae. You’re here? The actor I cast last time, you know….”

The director swept his hair back with an exasperated expression and launched into his complaints.
Jin-tae, who had just arrived, appeased the director’s temperament somewhat before heading into the set for shooting.
He stepped onto the floor with his hands in his pockets, delivering his line in a measured, hushed voice.

“Is it permissible to kill a person?”

Sharp and articulate, the words sliced through the air.
That single line, uttered without affect, froze the ambient noise on set in an instant.

“The thought just came to me suddenly. So I planned it out.”

The dialogue Min-woo had recited moments before had been hesitant and awkward, but it transformed the moment it passed through Jin-tae’s lips.
Kim Su-ho’s gaze, piercing through the camera lens, was utterly hollow.

“Hmm~”

He regarded the knife as though it were an amusing toy and toyed with it in his palm.
The eyes of a psychopath—no morality, no guilt, nothing of the sort had ever dwelt there.

“The thought just occurred to me, you know. So I took great care to prepare it.”

Kim Su-ho twisted his pallid lips slightly and smiled with chilling ease.

“I wonder where to cut to make a pretty sound.”

Kim Su-ho murmured the words in a honeyed tone, and with his other hand, he traced the mannequin’s neck with a gentle caress.
A delicate touch, as if stroking a lover’s cheek.
Yet the cruel gleam in his eyes, the grip strength that seemed ready at any moment to twist the plastic joints and snap them apart—made every staff member and fellow actor on set inhale sharply in unison.

‘We’re living in completely different worlds from this guy…!’

Han Seo-hyun, who had witnessed the acting from the start, was astonished beyond his expectations.
When he watched Yeon Gi-jun’s performance, he had already known the actor possessed superior talent, yet what he displayed now exceeded that benchmark with an immersion that left him breathless.
And then Kim Su-ho.

‘Is it just editing tricks?’
‘Maybe it took dozens of NGs to piece together a single take like this.’

How pathetic those cowardly doubts held by his peers now revealed themselves to be.
He had overwhelmed the entire set with a flawless, commanding performance.

* * *

The extra students who had played staff roles on set gathered that evening for dinner.
The atmosphere was poisoned with envy, defeat, and self-reproach.

“…Maybe I should switch to cinematography.”

They were classmates who had all threaded the same needle’s eye—a ratio of 190 to 1. Yet the gap they had witnessed today was devastating.
What they felt was this: they had been frogs in a well.

“Honestly, there are people who are that good, so how can we expect to compete?”
“Right. I’m looking into playwriting or something else too.”

It was as if a frog in a well had, for the first time, watched a bird soar freely across the open sky.

“Da-hye, what about you?”

Shin Da-hye, who had been peeling shrimp beside them, looked up.
Her classmates who had filmed alongside her were cowed by their first taste of inferiority.
But that wasn’t what Shin Da-hye felt.

“I have to keep acting.”

‘Can I become like them someday?’

Admiration.
She wanted to stand beside them.
Even knowing she still had so much to learn.
Shin Da-hye finished her shrimp and rose from her seat.

“I’ve already transferred the money. I’ll head out first.”
“Where are you going?”
“The practice room. I can’t just sit around doing nothing.”

With that, Shin Da-hye left the restaurant.

‘Work hard. Even if I can’t catch up to those two quickly, at least I can follow in their footsteps.’

* * *

When midterm exam period arrived, students received progress checks from Professor Ahn Chi-won.
Choi Byung-chul’s group was preparing to stage a theatrical production of Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard.
Perhaps because Ahn Chi-won had threatened Choi Byung-chul last time that he wouldn’t tolerate even one more tardiness, his acting had improved noticeably.
It seemed he hadn’t missed a single practice session and had been performing well.
Yeon Gi-jun’s group, as expected, said they were making a short film.
Then on Tuesday, an email arrived from Yeon Gi-jun.

[From: Acting.june.daehan.ac.kr
Hello, Professor. This is Yeon Gi-jun, a first-year student in the Acting Department.
I am submitting my work for both the Midterm Exam and Final Term assignments.]

One file was attached.

_Final.mov

“He’s already finished?”

From the filename alone, it could have meant a completed version for the midterm submission, but the message said he was submitting for both midterm and final assignments at once.

“Hmm, it’s obvious enough how he managed to make this in such a short time.”

He felt a touch of disappointment.
A completed work submitted when barely any time had passed since the semester project began.
No matter how talented the students in this group were, it felt too fast.
Ahn Chi-won played the file without any particular expectation.
It began with an understated scene of an unknown actor Min-woo being expelled from the set.
But as his character’s dangerous obsession with the role meshed with his loss of reality, the narrative grew increasingly grotesque and distorted.
Then in the second half, when Min-woo returned to the filming location and committed murder, all the preceding scenes suddenly connected as one.
The video ended.
Ahn Chi-won stared at the black screen for a long moment.
Then he checked the filename again.

_Final.mov

This time, that title felt different.
The pride of an actor who had completed a work and released it into the world.
Feeling that, Ahn Chi-won picked up his phone and dialed without hesitation.

-Hello?

A familiar voice came through the receiver.

“Gi-jun.”
-Yes, Professor.

Ahn Chi-won let his gaze linger on the monitor, as if chasing the afterimage across the screen.
It was far too precious a thing to languish as merely a semester assignment.
A clear narrative, performances that consumed the frame and left a deep resonance in their wake.
Acting that had completely inhabited the character, probability woven with precision into every single scene.
With this level of completion, there was no reason it should remain a student submission.

“What if we submitted this to a film festival?”

It was more than worthy of being cast before a larger audience, before viewers with more discerning eyes.

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