In This Life, I Will Die As An Actress, Not As A Villainess [EN]: Chapter 9

The tumultuous midterm season passed, and the next day,

‘Sunbae [term of respect for a senior colleague or mentor], I’ve told the staff, so just give them my name when you come in.’

I crumpled Seon Yu-seok’s text into my pocket.

I was taking time before the full-fledged script reading to go and give feedback on the acting he had asked for last time.

Giving feedback on someone’s acting was also a burden for me.

I did some acting tutoring for aspiring actors when I was younger to earn extra income, but.

That was already a distant memory.

As I arrived in front of the agency building, it was more sleek and grand than I had expected.

True Actors.

My memory is hazy, but from what I remember, it was quite a big company.

Hmm, this guy is already being scouted by a big company?

I guess his face is his fortune….

The staff came out to greet me when I rang the bell.

“Hello. I’m here at Yu-seok’s invitation.”

When I opened the practice room door, Seon Yu-seok was warming up.

Lightly jogging in place, shaking his hands, turning his neck, bending and twisting his waist…

Wait a minute.

‘Why is he so stiff…?’

I think this is the first time in my life I’ve seen someone stretch like that.

The considerable skill (?) revealed in his basic movements made me feel uneasy.

I tried to shake off the feeling.

He must not be relaxed enough.

Showing it one-on-one is always more nerve-wracking.

“What’s the script you’re going to practice?”

“It’s from …”

Seon Yu-seok handed me the script he had prepared separately.

“Ah, this. It’s an old one.”

“Is it? Is it that old?”

Oops.

“Just feels like it. So many movies are pouring out these days.”

was the story of a detective who struggled for 20 years to catch a psychopath.

Lee Hyeok-kwon, who played the lead role in the movie at the time, swept the Best Actor awards at the end-of-year ceremonies and rose to stardom overnight.

But now, that Lee Hyeok-kwon sunbae is long gone from the industry due to various scandals.

When I think about it, it was a movie from 23 years ago for me.

“Well, yeah, I guess so. Please read the lines next to me, sunbae.”

Seon Yu-seok took a deep breath and began to get into character.

“Chief, a new case has broken out. It’s… that bastard again.”

“What…?”

As soon as I finished my line, Seon Yu-seok threw the script to the floor.

He swept back his hair and paced around the room, filled with anger.

“I told you to please just go to that intersection once. If we had gone there, this wouldn’t have happened!! We could have stopped it…….”

Seon Yu-seok dropped to his knees as if collapsing.

……?

I was speechless.

Every line and action was awkward and out of nowhere.

In a word, it was excessive.

Seon Yu-seok sat down on the floor with a thud and started hiccuping.

“The 20 years… hic. What was it all for? Lee Young-seok… Lee Young, hic, seok!!! Why did you become my everything….”

…Wow, even his hiccup acting is awkward.

His vocalization was good, so the practice room echoed loudly.

He must have practiced his fundamentals thoroughly.

Seon Yu-seok got up and looked at me.

I barely managed to open my mouth.

“Yu-seok, let’s try it one more time.”

I tried to speak calmly.

“Yes, I understand.”

Seon Yu-seok answered cheerfully and immediately got back into character.

Is he a machine? How can he get into character so quickly….

“I told you to please just go to that intersection once. If we had gone there, this wouldn’t have happened!! We could have stopped it…….”

This time, the sound of his knees hitting the floor echoed loudly.

It must hurt… he’s just too eager.

He was definitely emotionally charged and his body was full of tension.

Seon Yu-seok was expressing his heightened emotions solely by tensing his body, face, and voice.

“The 20 years… hic. What was it all for? Lee Young-seok… Lee Young, hic, seok!!! Why did you become my everything….”

Watching this…

The long hiatus that this kid will experience in the future seemed to be unfolding before my eyes.

I felt a sense of hopelessness.

Seon Yu-seok got up, looking embarrassed, and quietly looked at me.

A look that asked how it was….

What am I going to do with him?

Looking at Seon Yu-seok’s face, I couldn’t bear the thought of my past life.

“Again.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Not according to the script. Forget everything.”

“Pardon?”

“I said forget the script.”

Then I walked towards the door and turned off the fluorescent light switch on the wall.

The practice room went dark in an instant.

Light still seeped in slightly from outside the door, but the change in atmosphere was dramatic.

“…?”

“Who are you right now?”

Seon Yu-seok looked at me with a bewildered expression.

“I’m… Detective Pi Jeong-han.”

As I glared at Seon Yu-seok in the darkness, he made a gesture as if realizing something and began to get into character.

“What do you think Pi Jeong-han would be thinking when he hears about a new case?”

Seon Yu-seok took a deep breath.

He paused for a moment, as if lost in thought, absorbed in something.

After a while, Seon Yu-seok opened his mouth.

“…Again, I missed him. Even… right in front of my eyes.”

“And?”

“I missed him right in front of my nose.”

“Where?”

“The intersection… the intersection I begged to go to just once.”

In the darkness, Seon Yu-seok seemed to feel a sense of relief after his initial bewilderment.

Because he couldn’t see himself acting.

“You can’t catch him.”

“Why?”

Seon Yu-seok momentarily showed a sign of wavering.

Good, that’s it.

Seon Yu-seok’s emotional tension rose.

I decided to keep pushing without missing this moment.

“Because you’re not as good as him. He’s playing with you right now. He even killed a new woman to show you.”

“No.”

“It’s all your fault. It’s because you’re not good enough. People died because of you.”

“No….”

‘Why? Why is it my fault…?’

Seon Yu-seok’s voice trembled as if he was about to burst into tears.

It was proof that he was finally starting to immerse himself properly.

As my intuition told me, Seon Yu-seok needed the darkness.

A screen that would prevent him from seeing himself acting.

The reason was simple.

Because if he saw his own shortcomings in real time, he wouldn’t be able to immerse himself in the character.

And if my guess was right… Seon Yu-seok would be more sensitive to his own shortcomings than others.

“No matter how much you chase him for the rest of your life, you won’t even reach his toes.”

Seon Yu-seok may or may not have realized it, but in the play, the psychopath Lee Young-seok is a special being to Pi Jeong-han.

For 20 years, Lee Young-seok has become not just a criminal to be caught, but Pi Jeong-han’s ‘dream.’

A dream that he has never been able to get close to.

Therefore, what Pi Jeong-han hates is not Lee Young-seok, but himself for not being able to catch Lee Young-seok.

Inferiority complex. Defeatism. And self-hatred.

This was Pi Jeong-han’s identity.

And… these emotions were already inside Seon Yu-seok.

‘Ha Seong-joon.’

Before I knew it, Seon Yu-seok was clenching his fist without saying anything, visible through the darkness that my eyes had become accustomed to.

* * *

‘You want me to express my motivation for acting growth in one word? Hmm… Jealousy is my strength. That expression is perfect.’

While coming here today…

There was only one most important thing I remembered about Seon Yu-seok among the few things I remembered.

It was an interview article that I had seen fleetingly in the past, when Seon Yu-seok had established himself as a top star.

I remembered the answer Seon Yu-seok gave to the reporter’s question, which indirectly asked how he overcame his terrible acting, because it was so impressive.

‘When I was seventeen, until I first went to acting school, went to school, and joined an agency, there was always someone who instilled a sense of inferiority in me.’

After his debut, Seon Yu-seok had a rival relationship with a male actor of the same age from the same agency, and the media made a fuss about it.

‘Everyone knows him, my self-proclaimed rival, Ha Seong-joon.’

At the time, the agency that had both of them used their relationship for noise marketing and made a lot of money, or so I heard.

However, while everyone was interested and quickly attracted attention, Seon Yu-seok was sincere about the relationship.

‘I always hated Seong-joon. He was always better than me. At the academy, at school, and even after debuting…. When the bad feelings I had while watching Seong-joon began to fester, I felt like I was falling endlessly. It was from that fallen bottom that I was able to start again. I was thirty years old at the time.’

‘When I realized that the enemy in my life was not Ha Seong-joon, but myself. Only then was I able to break free from my inferiority complex.’

Seon Yu-seok, who used jealousy as a driving force and started rebuilding from the basics, concluded the interview like this.

‘Seong-joon is an invaluable benefactor in my acting career. If the inferiority complex that Seong-joon instilled in me hadn’t pushed me to the edge, I would have been stuck in the same place forever.’

* * *

Seon Yu-seok, who always practices diligently, envies and follows people who are unusually talented to the point where rumors circulate.

He must have been jealous while watching the other person’s talent up close.

It was only natural that Seon Yu-seok would have a greater sense of inferiority than anyone else.

Because he’s desperate.

Because he wants to do better than anyone else.

“He’s laughing at you. He’s still laughing at you. But you know what? He was thinking about you while he was dismembering the woman.”

I delivered the words softly, as if whispering.

“…”

Seon Yu-seok’s clenched hands trembled slightly.

Seon Yu-seok blinked and shed tears.

As if he had been hit right on the mark, or as if he had realized the abyss of Pi Jeong-han for the first time.

Seon Yu-seok opened his mouth.

“Strangely…… I feel good.”

Seon Yu-seok raised his hands and buried his face in them.

“I don’t know what this feeling is.”

Seon Yu-seok’s voice trembled.

His emotions were gradually intensifying.

Draw it out more, explode it, Yu-seok.

“Are you going to chase that bastard for the rest of your life and end your life?”

Are you going to be a supporting actor for the rest of your life and quit acting, Yu-seok?

“No….”

Seon Yu-seok hesitated.

“Would you like your 20 years as a detective to be all for nothing?”

Would you like everything you’ve been practicing to become a sandcastle?

“No.”

“Lee Young-seok, you have to catch him.”

Seon Yu-seok exploded at the last word.

“I don’t know what to do. Who am I? Who is Lee Young-seok? Why is he doing this to me!!”

Seon Yu-seok screamed, shedding tears.

It was a voice pulled up from the pit of his stomach, trapped in despair.