As for impressions of the film…… honestly, he didn’t remember much of it.
“I couldn’t even follow what was being said. To be honest, it was a bit…… hard to watch.”
Would you even be able to collect money that way?
Given that they were using illegal violence to pressure people, probably a fourth-tier lender. They’d have lent to someone with no repayment capacity at the legal maximum interest rate, so it probably wasn’t a huge sum — but they’d still have some plan for squeezing money out. Just killing someone and harvesting their organs?
The historical accuracy and narrative logic were already a bit……
“It was too violent. And that part dragged on.”
No. I’m saying it was boring. He’d just wanted to pummel those yakuza tattoo guys.
“The sadistic parts were unnecessarily long, the picture quality was poor. The message was unclear. And all the actors were amateurs — nothing worth seeing.”
“But there were parts that left an impression.”
Of course, he’d been asleep from the midpoint so he didn’t remember much — but there were a few moments he recalled clearly.
“The clown that appeared in the opening. That person had good eyes.”
Depressed, like someone who had lost everything and had nothing left — a desolate feeling. And yet it strangely drew the eye.
One face, and yet it conveyed both ruins and a theme park sparkling with childlike wonder. It was such a brief moment, but it was memorable.
“And there was also the person getting beaten behind the main character — they weren’t in focus, but they left an impression too.”
A figure seen only as white hands from the protagonist’s point of view. It was probably a device meant to instill a sense of dread in the protagonist — but it was more memorable than the protagonist himself.
Those white hands.
Whether it was a performance or whether he’d genuinely gone stiff as a log, he couldn’t say — but they kept coming back to him. The camera relentlessly stayed on the protagonist, and yet strangely, it was the other person he kept thinking about.
“Why?”
It seemed to puzzle him that such minor, no-line extra roles had left an impression — but it was hard to give a definitive answer. Yong Cheonha didn’t know the reason himself.
“I don’t know anything about films or acting, so I can’t say it with any certainty — but they just stuck with me, you know? Isn’t it probably because the acting was that good? If I had to put it into words, I guess I’d call it talent. Just a feeling like that person’s level of immersion was on a completely different plane from everyone else?”
That’s why I thought from the opening alone that it was going to be a masterpiece. Yong Cheonha said it without any particular thought.
But at his words, Chae Songhwa sat there not knowing what to do with himself, his lips moving silently.
He’d open his mouth as if to say something, then close it again without a word — lick his lips as if they’d gone dry — press them inward so that dimples formed in his cheeks.
What?
His eyes, which were already dewy enough to look like he might cry at any moment, were even more glistening than usual today.
Did he get annoyed because our takes on it were different?
That could happen. It was possible to lose interest over a difference in character interpretation…… right? Damn. What was the problem?
No matter how hard he thought, he couldn’t figure out which part had been the mistake.
Outwardly composed, the emotions inside Yong Cheonha’s head were screaming and hurling curses at themselves, thrashing frantically to figure it out.
“……For real?”
“What……”
“Really? Why?”
I need to choose my words carefully.
Because if this situation were a pretty-boy romance simulation game, it could be an extremely critical branching point.
“Just…… a feeling, I guess?”
“Did you do it on purpose?”
What did I do on purpose? What is he asking?
Was he poking at him for ordering the plain cutlet instead of the sauced one? Or giving him a look for not eating the cabbage?
What is it. Seriously.
“What do you…… mean?”
At Yong Cheonha’s cautious, bewildered question, Chae Songhwa hesitated and opened his mouth with difficulty.
“I’m asking if you chose this film on purpose.”
“No. There was only that one movie I could see before dinner, so that’s why I watched it. It was my first time at an indie cinema, I didn’t know.”
Don’t you remember us sprinting there together because of that?
At Yong Cheonha’s answer, Chae Songhwa went quiet again. His expression was an unreadable mix — whether he was upset, or overwhelmed.
“……But how did you know.”
“Know what?”
Honestly speaking — he hadn’t known the plot, and he’d slept through the ending even though he’d been in the theater. He didn’t know anything. What was there to know?
“The clown and Extra 3 are both me — so how did you pick me out specifically and say…… that?”
Huh.
Not understanding what Chae Songhwa meant, Yong Cheonha chewed his cabbage with a blank expression.
Now that he looked — the face seemed to be one that couldn’t handle the embarrassment and didn’t know what to do with itself. A beautiful person who couldn’t bear the shyness and wanted to hide their face…… Oh no, he felt a pull——
“Huh?”
“……”
“Huuuh?”
Belatedly grasping the meaning of Chae Songhwa’s words, Yong Cheonha grabbed his own head in disbelief. An identity he never could have imagined?
“……Why?”
This time the question came from Yong Cheonha, not Chae Songhwa.
Why? Why were you in that film, why were you taking a role like that with a face like yours, and why are you telling me this over pork cutlet?
“I, I should be the one asking that. Is it true? You’re joking, right? You were just saying that to lift my spirits……”
No well, he did want to do that. And seeing how much he liked it and how embarrassed he was, he wanted to do it even more.
“I’m sorry, but I didn’t have enough information for that.”
Your profile didn’t even have a filmography listed.
“Oh……”
Don’t be disappointed. He could ask his uncles to dig up everything on him and memorize his entire life history. He was someone who, once he set his mind to something, followed through.
Completely unaware that he had just pressed Yong Cheonha’s obsession button, Chae Songhwa was caught in a state of indescribable, overwhelming pride — unable to move one way or the other. Even in a restaurant with the air conditioning blasting, his face had heated up enough that he had to fan himself with his hand.
“Ahem.”
He said he had no attachment left to the entertainment world — but apparently he still likes being recognized. Well — who wouldn’t?
He likes praise. That’s what this is.
He has a need for recognition. That’s it. In that case — the strategy is to lock him in a praise prison and raise his affection level.
“I mean…… I can’t really put it into words, but there was something that made my heart beat strangely? Just a different kind of presence from the start? Something that made me think — this is the real deal. Even with makeup covering your entire face? And even without the camera making you the main focus — the fact that atmosphere and eye expression alone could make someone memorable isn’t easy. And I don’t even know anything about acting. Isn’t that just being insanely talented?”
“S-stop.”
Damn. What did I just say? Did I just say “insanely talented”? He’d never even registered it as a problem before — but Yong Cheonha felt his heart drop as he grasped the importance of choosing proper language in real time.
Fortunately, Chae Songhwa hadn’t reacted to the crude expression — he was already dizzy from the stream of flattery and flowery words that had come before it.
The shame he was feeling was something he’d never experienced in his life, and it was unbearable. Chae Songhwa covered his ears and bowed his head — even the back of his neck was flushed red.
Looking at the exposed nape of his neck, the small head trembling slightly — something inside him itched with a ferocious, unbearable urge.
Oh, he’s precious. He’s so precious.
How can he be so graceful and lovely like that. Of course they’d have to get married, right? He’d have to make him his new husband, right? He’d have to take responsibility, right?
Yong Cheonha grinned like a scheming old man and gulped down daydreams of newlywed life. The daydream tasted incredible.
“L-let’s, s-shall we go if you’re done eating.”
“Sure!”
I’ll pour more compliments on him at the café.
The moment had been too brief for there to be enough to say — but since he could gush endlessly just from looking at that face, he wasn’t particularly worried.
He was about to pay when a startled Chae Songhwa hastily thrust his card forward.
Dumbfounded by a payment cutoff he’d never experienced in his life, he was floored — but seeing that utterly bewildered face that seemed to say why are you paying, his chest swelled with something grand.
“Th-then I’ll get the café!”
That I — that I of all people would say something like this? He was flustered and amazed at himself.
All the way to the café, Yong Cheonha gushed like a vending machine — how does he act so well, it was seamless, is this what they call a face of a thousand expressions, still though how could they cover up a face like this with makeup like that, the production team had no eye for talent — the compliments just poured out one after another.
Apparently embarrassed, Chae Songhwa kept walking faster and faster — practically at a running pace.
My man. Those legs are really something.
Since they were outdoors, he was free to flee, and quite a gap had opened up between them. He wanted to see him trembling and unable to escape — so he decided to exercise patience until they reached the café.
He held himself back all through sitting down at the café and receiving their drinks — and then slowly started up the engine of praise again.
“But honestly, that film really had potential, right? They shouldn’t have used that clown in the opening.”
They should’ve gotten a tight close-up shot. Should’ve filled the frame with that bare face.
“Clowns do have a strong horror image. I objected to it too — but a clown carries a lot of symbolic weight, right? Freedom, unpredictability, the ability to express a wide range of emotions, room for varied interpretation.”
I…… don’t really know about that. I just thought it was random.
“For a work set in modern times, the range of roles where you can use heavy enough makeup to make someone’s face unrecognizable without breaking the atmosphere is extremely limited.”
“Why does the makeup have to make the face unrecognizable?”
These days even clown part-timers — if they’re good-looking, they don’t bother with the full makeup. Just the stilts.
“My face is too striking, so instead of drawing focus to the protagonist, it ends up splitting the viewer’s attention……”
Then just make him the protagonist.
“Extras are an element that make the main story shine.”
“I don’t get it.”
“There were roles already set, and I just happened to get slotted in, so I have no complaints about the part. So you don’t have to get this upset about it……”
The director has no eye. Right now. No instinct.
It wasn’t about the protagonist being unattractive. He genuinely hadn’t felt particularly great acting from him either, and the impact wasn’t much.
An actor with underwhelming acting, unclear diction, and a face that wasn’t even outstanding, cast as the lead?
And that face is being hidden under layers of stage makeup?
“Isn’t it obvious to anyone that hyung is extraordinarily talented?”
“What? N-no, that’s, not really? At that time especially, there wasn’t really anything you could call acting skill. I’m truly grateful for the kind words.”
“No. Forget the acting. Look at this face.”
This is clearly a leading-man face! The face of the main character! The visuals of a protagonist!
“Visuals aren’t talent——”
“What is talent? Innate ability, the capacity required to do something, a natural gift — those are the kinds of things we call talent, right? A face? That’s something you’re born with. And it’s not some other profession — for an entertainer, isn’t your face also a talent? It’s a profession where you’re meant to be seen.”
The talent that others pour thousands and millions into building through artificial means — he was born with it naturally. You’re supposed to milk that for everything it’s worth. Instead, he was told to hide it — and he just hid it. Unbelievable. His head was going to explode from how infuriating it was.
If you’d been selling your face with everything you had from the day you debuted——
Then I would’ve been busy supporting you and following you around, and I never would’ve had to meet any of those trash people.
