An Actor Who Has Lived For 10,000 Years [EN]: Chapter 162

162. Episode 29 – Something I Didn’t Know (5)

After the trip, I had just one day to rest before heading back to Korea.

One day was enough to adjust to the time difference.

My passion for acting burned even brighter after visiting New York.

I was eager to start preparing for my next project.

So, after only one day of rest, I went straight to the office.

Manager Kim was, as always, at his desk, working diligently.

I quickly approached him and clapped him on the shoulder.

“Hyung!”

Manager Kim, who thought I would be resting longer, looked up at me, surprised.

“What? Hee-sung, what are you doing here?”

His eyes widened, and he asked, mouth agape.

“The trip’s over, so it’s back to work for me.”

At my words, Manager Kim frowned and shook his head.

“No, didn’t you just arrive yesterday morning? You could have rested a bit more before coming in.”

“Nah, I’m itching to work. And I brought you a gift.”

I handed him a shopping bag.

Manager Kim looked inside with an excited expression.

“Oh, did you get me souvenirs?”

Manager Kim opened the box inside the shopping bag and immediately frowned.

“What is this, Hee-sung… Isn’t this a luxury wallet?”

I smiled, raising my eyebrows, but he waved his hands and said.

“No. I just mentioned wanting something small from New York, but this is too expensive. I can’t accept it.”

“Come on, Hyung, just take it. There wasn’t much to buy in New York except for snacks and little trinkets. Well, I brought some of those for you too, so I’ll give them to you.”

“Then you can just give me those.”

I pushed the shopping bag into his arms.

“Take that too, and take this too. I had a great rest by myself. I figured it was time for you to change your wallet anyway, so I wanted to give it to you as a gift.”

Manager Kim bit his lip.

Then, he touched the wallet with his hand and replied, “…Thank you. I’ll use it well.”

Only then did Manager Kim give a faint smile and rummage through the wallet as if admiring it.

“What, is there money inside?”

At Manager Kim’s question, I smirked.

“They say if you give money with a wallet as a gift, you’ll become rich. I’ll act my heart out, so let’s get rich together!”

He blinked repeatedly and looked at me.

He seemed to really like my gift.

After hesitating with a touched expression, Manager Kim got up from his seat.

“I need to work harder too. Thank you.”

And pointing to the conference room, he said, “Let’s go to the conference room. I’ve already secured a good project for you while you were in New York.”

“Oh, let’s see it quickly.”

As soon as we arrived at the conference room, I opened the script that Manager Kim handed me.

“It doesn’t have a title yet?”

“Yeah, it only has a temporary title. I read it, and I thought it was good.”

At his words, I nodded and began to read the first page of the script.

The speed of my eyes and the turning of the pages increased as I read, and I was instantly immersed in the content.

A ‘medical drama’ – a genre I had never tried before.

For me, with no knowledge of medicine, it seemed like a genre with a high barrier to entry.

I hadn’t seriously considered trying it.

But this drama was so captivating that I felt like I had to do it.

In the end, without even finishing the script, I looked up at Manager Kim.

“Hyung, this script is incredible.”

“Yeah, as soon as I saw it, I thought it was perfect for you, Hee-sung, so I immediately secured it.”

Even while I was on vacation, Manager Kim was looking for and carefully selecting projects for me, which made me smile.

“And it’s a new writer, but the director is a veteran director.”

At his words, I bit my lip and murmured, “This is great.”

***

Buzzing, buzzing.

A noisy atmosphere.

Many people were around, and I was staring blankly at them with my hands in my pockets.

I couldn’t see clearly because of the blurry vision.

Some people seemed to be wearing the same clothes – uniforms.

What is this?

Then.

“Director, Director?”

The person who came forward waved his hand in front of my face and shouted.

Instantly, the blurry vision cleared.

I took a deep breath, my breathing rapid.

I knew right away.

This is….

That it was in my dream.

“Director!”

A person wearing a nurse’s uniform.

Lee Hyun-ah, a nurse at this hospital, shook my arm and called me urgently.

“Ah… Nurse Lee.”

“Director, you need to go into the examination room right now. Why are you standing here like this?”

“Okay. Let’s go in.”

I fluttered my white doctor’s gown and hurried into the examination room.

Inside the spacious examination room.

The walls were filled with the many awards and materials I had received, and medical books.

I quickly sat down.

Nurse Lee began to read the chart to me.

“Director, the next patient is Park Han-cheol. He had a detailed examination last week.”

“Yes, tell him to come in.”

The patient sat in front of me with a haggard face.

I began to explain the test results to him.

“Patient, the results of the detailed examination you had last week are in. How have you been feeling?”

He sighed at my words and shook his head.

“No. Doctor, is it serious… ?”

I looked at the chart and swallowed hard.

“Um… if you look at the patient’s results….”

The patient’s examination results were so bad that I explained with a heavy heart.

Only after a long explanation did he nod and leave the examination room.

And I said to Nurse Lee next to me.

“Nurse Lee, admit that patient right away.”

“Yes, I understand.”

After passing the chart, she continued to speak to me.

“Director, and the patient in room 712, today’s NR [No Resuscitation] patient, admission is scheduled, so I have marked the bed.”

“Okay. I’ll go and see later.”

I got up from my seat and opened the door to the examination room.

At that moment.

Flash-!

When I opened my eyes, I wasn’t in front of the examination room, but in my bedroom.

As soon as I woke up from the dream, I grabbed my throbbing head.

Medical terms that I had never learned or read were spread out like a dictionary in my head.

It felt like medical knowledge was filling my head.

“Ugh.”

I pressed my head with both hands and got up from the bed.

And the contents of the dream came to mind.

It was clearly different from the dream I had last time.

Today, the doctor’s point of view.

Only one point of view was visible, and not a single scene unfolded from the point of view of other characters.

Why can’t I see other people’s point of view today?

And I hurried to the study and opened the script I had received from Manager Kim a few days ago.

Recalling the scenes I saw in the dream and the medical knowledge that was embedded in my head, I began to recite the lines.

“Patient, your examination results are very bad. You don’t have much time left.”

I stared at the air and quickly immersed myself in the role.

“It is up to the patient to choose whether to have surgery to extend life by a few months or to spend the remaining time outside.”

After uttering the lines while thinking about the patient, tears welled up in my eyes.

I barely held back the tears and slowly looked at the next line.

“No. Should I just try transcribing it instead of practicing?”

I quickly took out a transcription notebook and started writing the script.

Several hours passed like that.

Before I knew it, my transcription notebook was full of black letters.

I was feeling the emotional lines and the feeling of other roles that I hadn’t seen before.

And I recited the lines I had practiced before transcribing again.

“Patient, your examination results are very bad. You don’t have much time left.”

I stared at the air, uttering the same lines as before.

“It is up to the patient to choose whether to have surgery to extend life by a few months or to spend the remaining time outside.”

And the tingling feeling that I felt.

It was a different me than before.

This time, there were no tears, but rather a firm face.

It wasn’t that Si-han-bu Sun-ho wasn’t sad.

It was just a consideration for the patient.

I judged that it would be more helpful to him to be calm than to empathize with the patient and be sad together.

I looked at the transcription notebook again and nodded.

“I would have said the lines with this thought here….”

Feeling satisfied with the transcription notebook, I quickly grabbed the pen again.

“This time, I should focus on transcribing even the other characters.”

***

Buzzing people.

Standing in the middle of them, I was looking around and examining people.

And it didn’t take long for me to realize it right away.

That this is in a dream…!

And at the same time, I could feel it.

That it was the same dream as yesterday.

“Director!”

I stopped organizing the charts and rushed to the director wearing a gown.

Waving my hand in front of the director’s eyes, who was standing blankly, I called him.

“Director, you need to go into the examination room. What are you doing here?”

The director looked at me with a surprised face at my call.

“Ah, Nurse Lee. I’ll go into the examination room right away.”

“Yes, I’ll take the chart and go in.”

And I opened my mouth to Nurse Park next to me.

“What, why is the director so spaced out today?”

Nurse Park sighed at my words and replied.

“The next patient’s test results are in. But the results… don’t seem very good.”

“Really? That patient had been receiving treatment from the hospital director for a long time, right?”

She nodded at my words.

“Haa… I’ll go in and see the director quickly.”

“Yeah, good luck.”

I was also a patient I had seen for a long time, so I sighed involuntarily.

My throat was choked with sadness.

But I barely swallowed that feeling and quickly burst open the door to the examination room.

At that moment.

An unknown white smoke spread out in front of my eyes.

My eyes started spinning dizzily.

‘What is this….’

The spinning vision stopped as if it had never happened.

I gasped for breath and looked ahead.

“Patient. Park Han-cheol?”

The doctor’s voice calling me.

I could tell right away.

That I was Lee Hyun-ah, the nurse, and now I had become Park Han-cheol, the patient.

‘What on earth is going on?’

The doctor sitting in front of me continued to speak with a serious face.

“Patient, are you okay?”

“Ah… yes.”

“The test results are not very good. So, I think you should think carefully about what I told you and make a decision.”

I nodded at his words.

“Then… I only have three months left at most?”

The doctor bit his lip at my words and replied with a calm expression and tone.

“…Yes.”

Rather than being sad, his calm face and voice seemed to comfort me.

I grabbed my pounding heart and got up from my seat and bowed to him.

Sadness? I didn’t feel anything like that.

This feeling of receiving a terminal diagnosis, not a diagnosis that something hurts.

Maybe it was even calm.

Because I had to decide as soon as possible whether to do what I wanted to do and spend the rest of my life happily with the people around me for three months.

Or whether to continue living in the hospital while receiving treatment.

I didn’t let out a sigh, but suppressed my heart and burst open the door to the examination room.

Flash-!

When I woke up from the dream, my head was spinning as if I was dizzy.

“What kind of dream is this?”

Clearly, the doctor in the dream I had yesterday.

And in today’s dream, I organically returned to the point of view of the nurse and the patient next to the doctor.

Thanks to that, I could feel their psychology as it was.

The role I will play in the drama is a doctor.

If I know the psychology of the people around me accurately and act, I will be able to express emotions that are clearly different from before.

Is it thanks to transcribing not only the main character but also other roles?

I recalled the transcription notebook I had made yesterday, and a smile spread across my face.