The Genius Actor Who Lives Twice - Chapter 37

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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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Chapter 37

“Yes, hello?”
“Hey, Kijun.”
“Oh, Lee Ha-eun. Where are you?”
“I’m almost there now!”

The sound of the bus rumbled through Lee Ha-eun’s phone.
Lee Ha-eun stepped down from the bus stop and waved at me across the street.
The place I’d asked her to come to after she called was the National Theater.

“When did you first dream of becoming an actress?”
“Hmm… elementary school, I think?”
“That’s quite early.”
“I watched a play here at the National Theater back then and fell completely in love with it.”
“But why piano then?”
“My parents forced it on me when I was young. It wasn’t until after college that I finally managed to quit.”

As I listened to her story, I turned the matter over in my mind.
How to unlock her potential quickly.

“It’s been forever since I’ve been to the National Theater.”

The place where she’d first seen a play.
The place where she’d first dreamed of becoming an actress—it would be fitting to start her transformation here.

“Are you going to teach me about acting while we watch?”
“Something like that. Just follow me for now.”

Lee Ha-eun caught sight of the flower in my hand and let out a soft laugh.

“Why’d you buy a flower? I mean, I’ll take it, but—”
“That’s not it.”
“Huh?”
“I brought it for the performer today.”

Lee Ha-eun’s face flushed and she quickly turned away.
If I’d truly been twenty-two years old, my heart might have raced during a moment like this alone with her.
But my actual age made it impossible to feel that way toward Lee Ha-eun.
And I’d already decided my life’s story would be modern fantasy without romance.
No love. Nothing like that.
As I was thinking this, Lee Ha-eun asked:

“So you know someone performing today?”
“Not exactly. But when I was on stage as an actor, receiving flowers felt like the greatest thing in the world.”
“Now I’m curious what kind of play this is.”
“Actually, I have a question for you first.”
“What is it?”

I spoke, thinking of the play we were about to see.

“Do you like mystery novels?”

* * *

Kijun sat in the audience without telling Lee Ha-eun what kind of performance it was.
Presently, the curtain rose.
The stage was an extraordinarily peculiar sight.
Deep gray wallpaper and an old fireplace.
A single chandelier hung from the ceiling, casting a faint glow.
And behind it, ten doors.
The audience held its breath.
From behind the stage, the sound of waves rolled in low.
Then a strange voice began to emanate from the speaker.

[Ten little soldiers went out to dine. One choked his little head in, and then there were nine.]

Bang. Someone emerged from the upstage door.
Several others followed, stepping from their rooms and gathering in the parlor.

“How do you do.”
“Delighted to make your acquaintance.”

Some said they’d been invited by a letter from an old friend.
Others claimed they’d come to take a new position.
Still another had been hired as caretaker and come to the island for that very reason.
A gentleman in a bowler hat bowed slightly.

“No. I myself only arrived today by invitation.”
“So none of us know one another, then.”

In this Mansion without a master, the ten people dined together, and a voice rang out from nowhere.

Edward George. You bore responsibility for the death of Louisa Mary Cliese on March 14, 1925.
Emily Caroline, you are liable for the death of Beatrice Taylor on November 5, 1931.]

The sinister voice that dominated the audience exposed them all as murderers who had driven someone to death.
The source of the accusation was an old Phonograph placed in one corner of the hall.
The actors’ words of shock and denial flew in confused profusion, with no clue in sight.
Moreover, a strange poem had supposedly been hung on the wall of each room.
It was the very same eerie nursery rhyme that had drifted out just as the play began.

That evening.
One of the ten invited to the Mansion died.

“He’s not breathing.”

Soon the lights dimmed and then brightened again. On the dining table, the figurines had dwindled from ten to nine.
As the actors’ breathing quickened on stage, Lee Ha-eun, watching the play from her seat in the audience, held her breath too.
The tragedy unfolded with the cold precision the verse had foretold.

And on the table, the figurines had become eight.

[Seven little soldiers chopped wood with an axe. One split in two. Six remained.]

A figure died hideously from the axe, and the dolls became six in number—then, one by one, each person perished.
And finally, after the terrible ordeal, only a single woman remained alive.

“Oh! I survived! I made it! No more fear of death!”

She clutched the little soldier, flooded with relief and joy.
She, too, would not meet death.
After all, the island had held only ten people to begin with—no one else existed here.
She stepped slowly across the stage.

“What was the last line of the poem again? One little soldier stood alone. Then….”

The moment she opened her door, the woman’s steps froze like stone.
A cold noose hung from the ceiling hook.
And directly beneath it, a single worn chair.
Immediately after, a desolate mechanical voice drifted from the speakers, constricting the entire Mansion.

[One little soldier stood alone.]

Soon the actress’s voice overlapped with the speaker’s, heard as one.

[He left in loneliness. And no one remained.]
“He left in loneliness. And no one remained.”

Only that one woman was left as a survivor on the island.
But how could such a thing even happen?
The joy of survival had already twisted into profound despair.
With vacant eyes, as though drawn by an inescapable fate, the woman slowly raised her foot toward the chair.

* * *

In that moment, I glanced briefly at Lee Ha-eun.
Somehow, she had already fallen utterly absorbed, barely breathing.

“Lee Ha-eun…!”

When I suddenly whispered, she flinched.

“Let’s go now.”
“Huh? Is it already over?”

Of course, the play still had its most crucial climax ahead.
But the impact I’d wanted to show Lee Ha-eun today ended precisely here.
After we finished watching the play, we decided to have an early dinner.

“How did you like the play?”
“I was completely absorbed. Ten people kept dying mysterious deaths, and I couldn’t figure out who the culprit could be at all.”

The work we’d seen today was a theatrical adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Mystery Novel “And Then There Were None.”
Before entering the theater, Lee Ha-eun had mentioned she’d hardly ever encountered mystery or thriller genres.
She hadn’t even read the Sherlock Holmes series—there was no way she could know the ending of this story.

“So what is it? Ultimately there was no culprit among the ten? Or is the servant actually the killer? The servant would have easy access to the Mansion’s layout, the food, the items. Or maybe the judge? To condemn criminals. But wait—that person died too. It doesn’t make sense.”

Lee Ha-eun’s eyes gleamed as she poured out her theories in an excited voice.

“The person who hanged themselves at the end—couldn’t they be innocent? If they were the killer, there’d be no reason for them to actually die.”

I found myself thinking it was good timing—appearing just before the true culprit’s identity was revealed.
Filling the audience’s minds with nothing but questions like this was precisely the direction I’d been aiming for.

“So, do you know? Who’s the culprit?”
“The culprit is one of the ten.”
“Really? But all ten of them are dead.”

After telling her to figure out the rest on her own, I calmly continued with the prepared material.

“Noona.”
“Hmm?”
“Are you curious about your character role like this too?”

At my words, her expression darkened in an instant.
It seemed the burden of performing the character role weighed on her quite heavily.
When she offered no reply, I pressed the question again with more force.

“You’re putting in a lot of effort to understand, aren’t you?”
“Well… No. I don’t think so.”

I gave her a moment to think.

“I can’t become Ha-ru.”
“No.”

I flatly rejected her words.
And Lee Ha-eun looked at my face with a dark expression.

“Ha-ru and I are completely different people.”
“Is there really nothing similar between you and Ha-ru? Not even one thing? You were a pianist. Ha-ru was a pianist too. If you approach it that way, bit by bit, you’ll find there are definitely similarities with the character role. And by gathering those similarities, you step closer to the character one pace at a time.”

At that, she fell silent.

“Let me ask you again. Is there really nothing similar between you and Ha-ru?”
“…There is. Actually, quite a lot.”
“What’s similar?”
“Like you said, piano. And the way you always turn over what someone says a few times in your mind. My hobby of reading books is similar too, and also… the way I don’t easily forget things.”

She continued to flesh out the character of Ha-ru.
She’d read the script so much that, despite lacking conscious effort to understand, she’d made the character almost like a real person.
Watching her speak about each habit and trait one by one, I began to suspect something.

“Noona, is there a particular reason you can’t concentrate on this performance?”
“Huh? Oh, no. There’s nothing like that.”

There is though.
It was presumptuous of me, but having already gotten a free dinner, I decided to repay the favor at least a little.

“Noona, my professor once told us that people intentionally hold back their emotions.”
“Hmm… I think I’ve done that too.”
“Yes, but actors can’t do that. If you suppress emotions, it becomes difficult to express the feelings that naturally arise in performance.”
“I see…”
“So if there’s something you’re not facing, resolve it quickly.”

At my words, Lee Ha-eun considered for a moment, then nodded.
Her eyes reddened in an instant, and she brushed away tears.
Wait?
Was the emotional expression really weighing on her that much?

“In any case, don’t worry too much.”

We no longer looked at each other, speaking only with our eyes fixed on the sunset.

“I want to fully understand the Character Role of Choi Yeo-un, you know.”

The reddened sunset looked like stage lighting on a theater stage.

“I feel as though there is a whole world within the Script, within the Play itself. I don’t want to treat the people in that world carelessly.”

A new world was being born.
And Lee Ha-eun and I were the protagonists of that world.

“So we should do our best during filming, you and I.”

The moment those words left my lips, I felt as though I’d received the signal “Ready — Action.”
Perhaps we are all beings living only within our own predetermined Scripts.
Each of us carrying our own Script, as the protagonist of our own story.

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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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