I'm an Unknown Actress, But Everyone Knows Me

* * *

I was flustered by the sudden attention converging on me. Professor Geum Bitgang sent me a look as if to say, go on—answer.

The scene formed in my head without difficulty. The countless former colleagues of mine I’d brushed past came to mind.

“Misery is having talent, yet crashing into poverty and giving up on your dream.”

People who undeniably shone the moment they stepped on stage, who cried out with their whole bodies that they wanted to act—yet one by one, with awkward smiles, said they had to quit the troupe now.

Most of the time, the farewell parties were held at frozen pork belly joints or street bars.

‘After two or three bottles of soju, those awkward smiles would turn into faces bawling their eyes out, saying they actually wanted to act more....’

Soju bottle caps scattered messily across a narrow table, a pot of fish cake soup boiled down until the broth was gone, the clatter of a spoon falling to the floor, faces patting a friend’s back telling them not to cry while being unable to say they’d cover the drinks despite this month’s tight finances, confessions that they’d actually been planning to quit too, shouts yelled through tears asking how they could do this, weren’t they serious about acting?

Far too shabby a scene to be a farewell for a dream someone had poured their passion into.

That is misery. Professor Geum Bitgang asked again.

“Then what is desolation?” 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

This, too, wasn’t difficult. I was someone who had gone through a long, harsh period of obscurity and poverty. A nearly identical moment brushed past my mind, separated by a hair’s breadth.

“Desolation is having no talent, yet still crashing into poverty and striving on—only to never achieve your dream in the end.”

I had felt so many lives, each similar yet each different. Failing to achieve a dream, and yet being unable to give it up—that is desolation.

At my answer, Geum Bitgang lifted one eyebrow. It was an expression I’d never seen before. The room fell silent.

“Then what about desperation?”

This time, instead of the lives around me, I stepped into the countless scripts I had read.

I thought briefly about which character, performing which action, had looked the most desperate.

“Desperation is a limping mother who gains the hope that her child, stricken with an incurable disease, might recover—carrying the child on her back and running to save them.”

A mother in shabby clothes, her hair tied up but fallen into disarray. In a secluded alley of a hillside shantytown where even the streetlights flickered weakly, I could feel the shadow darting past burst trash bags. The damp, sticky stench of garbage brushed my nose.

Knowing it won’t work, knowing it’s impossible.... The poor footsteps that nonetheless stake everything on the hope of saving the child echo pitifully.

“Then what is devastation?”

The scene continues. Ragged breathing is heard. A faint warmth is felt against her back—the warmth of a child still alive. The shadow that stretched long through the dark alley disappears under the hospital’s bright lights. As the shadow vanishes, the silhouettes of mother and daughter come into sharp relief.

“Devastation is when every hospital locks its doors and refuses to open them, having foreseen they won’t be paid the medical fees—even though there is a mother and child crying outside the door.”

The hospital’s warm lights illuminate their faces as if cruelly caressing them. The doctor’s hand, firmly locking the door, is smooth and white, without a single scar—clearly different from the mother’s hand gripping the child’s thigh tightly as she hoists her up.

Through the gap of the door, the gulf between their lives is felt with stark clarity. Only then does the cold reach the mother’s body, making it tremble.

“...”

Dense concentration poured down. After that, Geum Bitgang asked me about emotions that differed by just a single character.

The answers were easy. Because I had never let go of acting even once. Because I wanted to draw the lives of countless characters.

Ruthlessness is staining your blade with the blood of the older brother who once gave you piggyback rides in childhood, his subordinates, even the families attached to them—all to ascend the throne.

Abjectness is a prince who, knowing everything his uncle has done, must smile and cater to him simply because he doesn’t want to die.

Bleakness is a life of serving as your uncle’s puppet for an unknowable length of time, while watching loyal retainers die with both hands and feet severed....

With a single word, scenes linked and unfolded. Even after that, Geum Bitgang’s questions continued several more times.

“...Good.”

At last, a smile spread across Geum Bitgang’s face.

It was so quiet that it felt as if only Geum Bitgang and I existed here, the two of us alone. It felt like even breathing had stopped.

“Do Gyeoul. This time, you answer.”

Geum Bitgang’s gaze shifted. Our eyes met—Do Gyeoul’s, which had been fixed on me.

“What is cruelty?”

Do Gyeoul moved her lips as if wanting to say something. But the answer didn’t come easily.

Only after a long while did Do Gyeoul’s mouth open slowly.

“It is being extremely harsh and severe.... Synonyms include cruel, ruthless... and in Park Kyung-su’s The Frozen Land, it says that the misfortune of the poor is born from the cruelty of fate that makes them bear heavy burdens.”

“Good. Then what is brutality?”

“It is being cruel and severe. In Lee Mun-yeol’s Son of Man, the brutality and cold-heartedness hidden within Himerus’s gloomy smile—”

“That’s enough. Then what is atrocity?”

“Using the characters for ‘tragic’ and ‘vicious,’ it means miserable and horrific. A hypernym would be misery....”

Do Gyeoul’s voice remained precise in pronunciation, but her breathing was uneven in places. Her expression control was adept, but her attitude couldn’t hide it.

Anyone could see she was flustered by an unexpected question.

“Right. That’s an accurate explanation. But what I asked for wasn’t the dictionary definition. An actor should be able to give a new definition—one that sounds like an actor.”

Geum Bitgang’s voice grew slightly louder.

But Do Gyeoul couldn’t answer right away. She only stared at Geum Bitgang.

Like a child who didn’t know the correct answer.

At last, Geum Bitgang took her gaze off Do Gyeoul.

“Now, I think each of you will be picturing various scenes in your heads. Some of you may think of classics, some of a drama you watched yesterday, others of people around you.”

Then, making sure every student in the lecture hall could hear, she said,

“The more precisely you express emotions that differ by just a hair, the more accurately the audience can receive the message within the work. No matter what role you’re assigned, don’t forget what it is you must convey!”

The previously quiet students responded to Geum Bitgang all at once. Only then did the ambient noise return to normal.

“Han Yeoreum, what was that? Did you study on your own?”

“I’ve seen this kind of development somewhere before. Kind of like a hidden-overpowered webtoon.”

“Stop watching stuff like that.... You look like an otaku.”

“You were the one who recommended it.”

Nearby classmates teased me in low voices. At the small commotion, Professor Geum Bitgang looked our way—but with a faint chuckle, she turned her head back.

In that bustling place where everyone was noisy, only Do Gyeoul kept staring straight ahead in the same posture until the lecture ended.

* * *

Geum Bitgang’s pace quickened. Her footsteps echoed down the corridor. Her heart pounded. Because of that, she couldn’t even clearly tell what emotion she was feeling.

‘Han Yeoreum....’

Perhaps Han Yeoreum could unravel even this emotion properly.

‘If it’s that child who can place life right before your eyes with a hair’s-breadth difference.’

Walking forward hurriedly, Geum Bitgang came to a sudden stop.

She felt like she understood.

The name of the emotion that had just sent a shiver through her.

‘Yes.’

This was anticipation. That swelling feeling she thought had disappeared from her heart forever.

Geum Bitgang turned her head toward the window. In the distance on the opposite side, she saw Han Yeoreum. Just like on the first day of the semester, sunlight wrapped around her.

‘Looks like I’ve become a real old fogey.’

Looking at Han Yeoreum, Geum Bitgang reflected on herself. Commerce and art. Entertainer and actor. She felt ashamed of herself for having drawn such clear lines and judged that way at some point.

Imagining Han Yeoreum diving deep into the script even where no one could see, a smile formed at the corner of her mouth.

“This is going to be interesting....”

Geum Bitgang murmured softly. The many students who had been in °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° that space today would each have sprouted their own emotions in their chests.

Her gaze caught Do Gyeoul, staring fixedly at Han Yeoreum’s back.

“How long am I supposed to wait until finals.”

The final performance. The stage where Daehan Arts General University students show everything they’ve learned over the year.

Geum Bitgang wanted to split them into teams with the same theme and make them truly clash.

‘If I divide them into Team A and Team B and put on the play....’

Whom would the audience’s cold evaluation raise the flag of victory for?

Geum Bitgang’s eyes gleamed.