I'm an Unknown Actress, But Everyone Knows Me

* * *

“Alright! I’ll take this side. Yeomga and Seoryeong, why don’t you start by analyzing each other nicely?”

Noh Jeongyeon grabbed Kwon Junhyeok and Director Jang and headed up to the second floor. Director Jang, worried about Yeoreum, turned back several times even over that short distance.

“Will it really be okay if I’m not down there?”

“Of course, of course. Don’t worry. More importantly, shouldn’t you be guiding this little chick over here first?”

“Kuh... I’m sorry.... That person is doing so well, but I....”

“No, no, no, Junhyeok! There’s nothing to apologize for. Then shall we start by checking what part is difficult for you? Forget Yeoreum for a moment!”

Only after reaching the top of the stairs did Noh Jeongyeon look down to the floor below.

The two people holding their scripts were sitting face-to-face in silence.

‘Earlier, Han Yeoreum, for a rookie, was quite something. No, no... excessively outstanding.’

Just realizing that she was being pulled along already placed her among the gifted.

‘When you’re doing script reading, it’s hard to hear your own voice objectively.’

And even when she was asked to perform a long monologue with nothing given to her, she digested it properly.

With just that, Han Yeoreum had already leapt far beyond the limits of an ordinary rookie.

‘Bitgang knows that too, and yet she’s just being petty.’

Noh Jeongyeon let out a small sigh.

‘Let’s start with the chick first.’

Patting the back of the dejected, sniffling Kwon Junhyeok, Noh Jeongyeon began correcting his vocalization—while looking forward to the Yeomga and Seoryeong those two would create together.

* * *

“I’d like to hear Professor’s interpretation of Yeomga.”

“...You didn’t forget the score I just gave you, did you?”

“I remember. Even so, I’m more curious about Professor’s interpretation than the reason. In the final scene, Seoryeong is a character who can’t be completed without Yeomga.”

It was different from when she showed it to Director Jang. She had practiced it countless times. Now she had meticulously calculated even where and how Seoryeong should breathe.

‘And even then, for Geum Bitgang to give ninety points....’

There was a high probability that the Yeomga she had interpreted and the Yeomga Geum Bitgang had interpreted were misaligned somewhere.

Geum Bitgang gave a hollow laugh as if it were absurd and asked her,

“What kind of character is Yeomga?”

“She’s ambitious and ruthless.”

“On what basis?”

“She tries to kill even the king to swallow the country, and she has no hesitation in killing people.”

“No hesitation.... Then what’s the basis for that?”

“Because she even killed her own child.”

Geum Bitgang’s words hung over her neck like a sharpened blade.

“It isn’t described what Yeomga felt when she killed her child. How do you know that?”

She barely managed to knock away Geum Bitgang’s blade.

“Because even after killing her child, she unhesitatingly offered other children as sacrifices.”

“For someone as capable as Yeomga, resentment would be natural. Isn’t it possible that because she had no choice but to kill her own child, she couldn’t tolerate other people’s children remaining alive?”

The finely honed blade came at her again.

“In the first place, if Yeomga had a child, where did the father go? What was he doing when the child was killed?”

Her breath caught in her throat.

“That’s... in the script....”

“Right. It’s not in the script. But if you go ‘as written in the script,’ this is an era where not even science, not even transportation, was properly developed. A shamanic rite is extremely political. Money, power, and public sentiment are tightly interwoven.”

Something she had never considered struck her squarely in the back. From here on was a dead end.

“Otherwise, you can’t even call a shaman. If you’re poor, all you can do is bow your head to a totem pole or a stone, but the powerful are different.”

Geum Bitgang continued, looking at her as she stood there unable to speak.

“When a calamity-like natural phenomenon occurs in an isolated village, who do people blame? Hm?”

A wretched village came to mind. People pointing fingers at Yeomga, voices she heard even when she was just passing by, shouts telling her they wouldn’t sell to her and ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ to get lost.

“Yeomga like that must have been lonely, and she probably wished someone—anyone—would stay by her side. Do you think Yeomga wouldn’t know affection or love? That child must have been born that way. She couldn’t dare to forcibly take a shaman as a man.”

The man who appeared in Yeomga’s always-solitary life, and a small hope that she might be able to build a modest family like everyone else.

“Wouldn’t the villagers have been even more afraid when they saw a pregnant Yeomga? Because another person like Yeomga would be born.”

Yeomga and the man placing their hands together on her belly, feeling the stirring of life; Yeomga smiling as she prepared the baby’s first clothes; the two holding hands as they took a walk.

“And you know... people feel fear when someone they think is different starts behaving similarly to themselves.”

People staring at Yeomga with bloodshot eyes, scenes of them plotting something dangerous by the light of an oil lamp.

“If a beast could speak human words, wouldn’t you want to kill it?”

She could see sharp blades gleaming in people’s hands—sickles and hoes, knives and scissors.

“Then who would be easier to kill: the pregnant shaman Yeomga, or her husband who often comes into the village for his wife?”

Just a single line.

Crushed by harsh contempt and persecution, Yeomga decides to seize the royal authority of Yeomho Kingdom.

It was only one line, but with that alone, Geum Bitgang was an actor who knew how to unravel Yeomga’s entire life.

“Would she have wanted to bring a child into a world like this? Especially if that child had stronger divine power than herself? That child would have to live while suffering several times more of the injustice she herself endured.”

“...”

“After her spouse’s death, would Yeomga really be in her right mind? Hallucinations, auditory delusions, self-loathing, depression, insomnia, panic disorder, hwabyeong... And she probably wouldn’t have been able to make proper judgments for a while.”

“...”

The life of Yeomga that Geum Bitgang laid bare stabbed painfully into her.

“Maybe Yeomga regretted killing her child afterward. There’s a high chance it wasn’t a decision made in her right mind.”

Her heart began to race uneasily. The Yeomga who had felt flat now became overwhelmingly understandable.

“That’s why she wanted revenge. Even as atonement for her child, she wouldn’t be able to tolerate a world like this running along harmoniously.”

The persecution she suffered for being a shaman. That light word pressed down on her so heavily she could barely breathe. Geum Bitgang’s Yeomga kept growing larger.

“The size of Yeomga’s resentment is something only Seoryeong, another shaman, can feel. Even if she doesn’t know the detailed circumstances, how big and heavy and hard-to-overcome that grudge is.”

Compared to that, her Seoryeong was too small and shabby....

“You’re standing up against an opponent like that. That’s why you’re lacking. Got it?”

She had no choice but to accept the score Geum Bitgang had given her.

“So find it.”

“...”

“Not by the start of filming, that’s fine, but before shooting that scene, no matter what, find it. Understood?”

Something hot flared up in her chest.

I can do it. I can. Let’s find the Seoryeong who can stand up to Yeomga.

“...Yes. I’ll find it.”

She made a promise to the Yeomga sitting across from her—to fight properly, in the right way.

* * *

Time passed quickly. In the meantime, the storyline of gradually took on a more complete form.

“Let’s go in the direction of cutting the original lines, and change Myungdo’s character a bit. Make him the type who moves before he speaks! I trust our Yeoreum to handle the lines well. Let’s increase Seoryeong’s side.”

“Wouldn’t that cause a screen-time issue? If we fill it with my share, Junhyeok’s agency won’t like it....”

Noh Jeongyeon’s carrots and Geum Bitgang’s relentless whipping were provided in a perfect 2:8 ratio. Kwon Junhyeok, who had grown gaunt in just a few days, smiled and gave a thumbs-up.

“It’s fine! The agency scammed me anyway! I’ll hit back once! What’s the point of having lots of screen time when I can’t even act!”

The corners of Kwon Junhyeok’s eyes, somehow different now, were still moist.

‘Either way, the characters have definitely taken shape.’

Jeongan, Yeomga, Myungdo.... All of them had gained dimensionality, like living, breathing people.

‘Everyone except my Seoryeong.’

Why ninety points? Where exactly was the empty spot? No matter how much she thought about it, no clear answer came.

Unable to sleep, she put on her shoes and went outside at dawn. Looking up at the dim sky, she took in a deep breath of the air heavy with morning dew. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

Perhaps because it had rained yesterday, the temperature was cold enough to feel chilly.

‘The place where Seoryeong lived....’

What did Seoryeong think as she looked at a sky like this? In that isolated place, the only one with her would have been Jeongan, and yet what kind of gaze should Seoryeong have, unable to fully let her guard down even with Jeongan?

“If you don’t sleep now, the climb will be tough.”

A voice came from behind her. A clear voice, unclouded despite the early hour.

“...Professor.”

It was Geum Bitgang.