In This Life, I Will Die As An Actress, Not As A Villainess [EN]: Chapter 10

Okay, that’s it for today.

I turned the lights back on with a snap.

Seon Yu-seok looked at me, startled.

Still caught in his emotions, tears streamed down his face.

I clapped for Seon Yu-seok.

I clapped loudly to break the heavy atmosphere.

“Yu-seok, that was great.”

“Yes…?”

“Just now, that was the best. Your emotions were so raw and real.”

Seon Yu-seok blinked, confused, wiping away his tears, and stared blankly at his reflection in the mirror.

“First, take a look yourself.”

I took out my phone, which I had hidden with the script, and showed him the recorded video.

Starting from the warm-up to the actual acting.

“This is from the warm-up. What do you think the problem is?”

At my question, Seon Yu-seok blushed as he watched the video.

“It looks like I’m overdoing it. But I can’t seem to control it…”

“Then how about this?”

I played the second video.

It was the scene where he was talking to me and then screaming, overwhelmed with emotion.

“Now, look when you’re angry. Does this look like you’re overdoing it?”

“Uh… no…?”

“It looks natural, right? Don’t try to force it and show it, but push yourself until you’re genuinely angry.”

“…”

“You had a hard time getting out of your emotions after talking to me, right?”

“Yes. The tears wouldn’t stop… Actually, they still aren’t.”

“Don’t forget that feeling. Hold onto it.”

After hearing my words, Seon Yu-seok was silent for a long time, just inhaling and exhaling with flushed breaths.

“Noona [older sister or female friend],”

“Yeah?”

“Please hit me.”

“What?!”

What the hell is wrong with this guy?

I took a step back.

Seon Yu-seok took a step closer.

Looking at his determined face… I burst out laughing.

“You want me to keep pushing you like this?”

“Yes, Noona.”

It seemed like the harsh words I threw at him felt like a beating, a form of emotional prodding.

I could tell, even without him saying it.

I, too, started by pushing myself to the edge of a cliff to draw out emotions when I first learned to act.

“Let’s both work hard.”

I lightly patted Seon Yu-seok’s shoulder.

* * *

“Hey, what’s with you? How can you change so much in just one day?”

“You rascal, how much did you practice? Huh?”

The acting coach and team leader, who were sitting on the sofa in the practice room watching Seon Yu-seok’s acting, applauded.

Seon Yu-seok felt the sweat running down his back and smiled happily.

I did it.

It was the first time I’d heard such praise.

No, the second time I’d heard such praise.

“Yu-seok, I’m going to cry, seeing you grow after all the trouble you’ve caused.”

The trainer pretended to wipe away tears.

I gave a sheepish smile and bowed my head.

My head was spinning.

Looking in the mirror, my face was flushed.

Just like that day.

* * *

“Yu-seok, that was great.”

“Yes…?”

“Just now, that was the best. Your emotions were so good.”

I couldn’t understand what my senior was saying.

My mind went blank.

I couldn’t even remember what we had talked about.

After finishing the acting, my body just trembled, and tears flowed.

When I watched the videos my senior had played, the first performance was as ridiculous as usual.

My appearance, which I had practiced, recorded, and replayed hundreds of times.

My foolish appearance.

It was the appearance I already knew.

It was terrible.

That’s right, I was a terrible actor.

But the moment Saena senior played the second video, my breath stopped.

“No! I don’t know what to do. Who am I? Who is Lee Young-seok? Why are you doing this to me!”

In the darkness, I was screaming and getting angry with all my might.

With a face I had never seen before.

In my desperate screams, there was Pi Jeong-han, and inside Pi Jeong-han, there was me.

The me who was full of inferiority.

The face of Seongjin came to my mind at that moment.

When I first met Seongjin, my appearance was always collapsing in front of the mirror while practicing alone…

I faced Seongjin and my heart that hated Seongjin for the first time.

Numerous images flashed through the face I was acting with.

My world was contained in my appearance of acting as Pi Jeong-han.

And paradoxically, that world showed Pi Jeong-han.

After watching the video, the lights came on…

Suddenly, my eyes met my face in the mirror.

My face was soaked with tears and sweat.

My familiar face felt somewhat unfamiliar.

And then… I felt like I had been hit on the head.

I realized that I had done the first performance I had ever properly immersed myself in since I started acting.

After Saena senior went back that day, I practiced the same script hundreds of times all night.

I was anxious that I would forget this feeling I felt for the first time.

I turned the lights in the practice room on and off hundreds of times, pushing myself.

The same emotions didn’t come every time, and my body and mind were exhausted.

But as I practiced with image training as Saena senior taught me, I felt my acting gradually becoming more natural.

Above all… when I couldn’t think of anything and my mind went blank.

When I was really immersed, it was really comfortable and easy to act.

I never dreamed that just turning off the lights would make me feel so comfortable.

I realized once again how much I was aware of my lacking self.

“Doing as Saena senior told me… it really works.”

I leaned my tired body against the practice room wall, drank water, and thought of my senior.

“She’s a really amazing senior.”

She was originally a senior who was said to be good at acting in the department, but she wasn’t a standout until the auditions for .

But she was really amazing at the end-of-semester performance.

Han Saena’s Ophelia.

That Ophelia was unique to Han Saena.

How much bloody practice did she do?

How does she do that…

Did my sister have the same worries as me?

Unlike others, I felt a deep sincerity in my senior’s advice.

‘Don’t forget that feeling.’

In those words, I sometimes felt a veteran’s experience that I couldn’t feel from a rookie.

Besides…

When I think about it, when she was giving me acting coaching, she brought out my inferiority complex, which I had never told anyone, as if she knew it better than anyone else.

Whenever I think back to that day…

“Ugh, it’s embarrassing.”

I had to cringe.

I started to wonder about Han Saena more and more.

Whatever it was…

I really did well to visit her.

I had been wandering around too much.

I got up again.

* * *

“Hey, you, how did you do it?”

Seon Yu-seok was shaken back and forth by the arm that the other person was shaking like paper.

The person urging Seon Yu-seok was Kwon Min-young, the head of Actor 3.

A founding member of True Actors and in danger of becoming a traitor… [likely referring to internal company politics].

In many ways, it was an ironic and eventful figure.

“My school senior helped me.”

“School senior? Who?”

Kwon Min-young asked persistently.

“There’s someone named Han Saena.”

“Han Saena? Who is that?”

“She’s a senior who passed the audition for the role of Yoo Ji-an in Flat Shoes this time.”

“Flat Shoes??”

Oh, look at this.

The space between Kwon Min-young’s eyebrows gradually narrowed as she listened to the story.

As for Flat Shoes, she had already obtained the script that had been circulating in the industry a long time ago and had read it several times.

It was a pity for Kwon Min-young that there was no talent in the agency to send to that audition.

“How did she help you? To save a kid like you…”

At those words, Seon Yu-seok squinted.

“Hey.”

It was possible for Kwon Min-young to make such close-to-rude comments to Seon Yu-seok because she had been watching Seon Yu-seok’s difficult days of struggling for acting the closest.

‘Han Saena…’

“You look a little more comfortable today?”

At Kwon Min-young’s words, Seon Yu-seok smiled.

“Really?”

“Are you getting some sleep these days?”

At Kwon Min-young’s words, Seon Yu-seok scratched his head.

“Just a little?”

“Sleeping pills aren’t good. Cut back. Acting isn’t that important. Living is more important.”

Previously, Seon Yu-seok had confessed while drunk at a company dinner that he had been suffering from nightmares every night since joining the company.

‘It’s even more hell since I joined the agency! Because it means that my skills are about to be exposed to others. Because I’m really bad at acting! Sniff… Every night, in my dreams… people are pointing fingers at me.’

After saying this, Seon Yu-seok completely passed out from being drunk.

And Kwon Min-young sighed deeply after hearing those words.

Because she was so sorry.

In the case of Seon Yu-seok, even if a good trainer was attached, he didn’t improve even if he practiced for six hours every day.

“But I’m just now a little.”

Kwon Min-young looked up at Seon Yu-seok’s face.

“I think I’m feeling a little better now. I’m still anxious, but at least… it doesn’t feel like a vast ocean anymore?”

At those words, Kwon Min-young stroked Seon Yu-seok’s head, pretending to hit him.

“How much money did we spend on training?”

“Ouch.”

Seon Yu-seok grabbed his head.

“I’m going to sue you.”

Even if they say this to each other…

Kwon Min-young was the coolest person Seon Yu-seok had ever seen.

True Actors’ Kwon Min-young.

This person has developed the company with a tenacity that doesn’t tolerate injustice and clings to anything until it works.

However, an adversary follows a person with a strong driving force.

Kwon Min-young has been the target of many people’s hatred during her ambitious company life.

She has been targeted by management countless times.

This was because Kwon Min-young had never turned a blind eye to injustice in an industry where all kinds of dirty incidents were rampant.

So much so that the people watching were frustrated.

And Kwon Min-young had an indifferent attitude to the fate of having to live with such self-inflicted troubles.

She only proved herself to those who hated her with her ability to discover talent.

That was the kind of person Kwon Min-young was.

In the meantime, despite the company’s opposition, Kwon Min-young had been pushing to postpone Seon Yu-seok’s debut.

It was by no means a hateful feeling towards Seon Yu-seok.

It was just an objective judgment that this friend still needed more preparation.

Seon Yu-seok also supported Kwon Min-young’s intentions.

Because Kwon Min-young’s judgment had never been wrong since he had known her.

And because he knew his skills better than anyone else.

Kwon Min-young continued immediately.

“Does that person have an agency?”

“Saena senior? I don’t think she has one yet. Are you going to scout her?”

Kwon Min-young threw away Seon Yu-seok, whom she had been holding on to, without saying anything.

“Practice more. I’m leaving.”

Seon Yu-seok’s body staggered as he was pushed away.

* * *

Kwon Min-young, who came out through the door, was lost in thought.

Then, as if she suddenly remembered something, she moved to the control room.

Kwon Min-young sat in front of the recorder booth and started replaying the recording videos of Seon Yu-seok’s practice room for the past week.