Chapter 2
Under the brightly shining lights, the black stage quietly gleamed.
The silent stage seemed to breathe softly, waiting for an actor to fill the empty space.
This space could become anything.
I would fill this space and bring it to life.
Something began to boil deep inside my body.
“I can do this.”
I slowly took one step after another onto the stage.
The tension made my legs feel heavy, but my heart swelled with excitement instead.
Thud, thud.
Two large TVs stood on either side of the black stage.
They were there to show close-up footage of the applicants’ faces so the judges could examine them in detail.
In the exact center of the stage, I noticed a square made with yellow tape on the floor.
I remembered.
I was supposed to step inside that square and introduce myself.
“Hello. I am candidate number 127. I will begin my performance.”
A few seconds later, I began looking toward the audience through the eyes of my character.
A few minutes before Yeon Gijun stepped onto the stage.
Professor Ahn Chi-won, who was sitting in the audience evaluating the students, was bored.
More than seven thousand students had applied for this year’s exam, and he had to watch hundreds of applicants every day.
Some of them could act reasonably well, but most couldn’t rise above an amateur level.
“It would be nice if there were an exceptional student. Everyone’s skill level seems pretty similar.”
“Come on, Professor Ahn. That’s because your standards are too high. Try lowering them a little.”
“Still, I’m hoping at least one person will stand out.”
“Oh, the next student is coming out.”
Professor Ahn Chi-won glanced at the student, and a young man was standing there.
“He’s handsome.”
“Is he a trainee?”
People who were pretty or handsome often applied to acting departments simply because others told them they should become celebrities, even though they had never properly learned acting.
This student was probably one of those people.
“I am candidate number 127.”
Professor Ahn Chi-won, who had been quietly looking down at the paper in his hands, turned his gaze toward Yeon Gijun.
His pronunciation and voice projection were both good.
Has he done some basic training?
But that would probably be as far as it went.
Voice projection and pronunciation could improve simply through repeated practice without much thought.
Acting was different.
You had to constantly analyze the character and then train your body so that you could speak and move on stage based on that analysis.
Everything from the pitch and speed of the lines to every tiny habit of the character.
There was no way a student barely twenty years old could have gone through such a long and difficult process.
Soon, Yeon Gijun briefly closed his eyes to concentrate.
A faint smile crossed the student’s lips.
That was undoubtedly something only someone who genuinely wanted to enjoy the stage could do.
It could be seen as arrogance, but if the student was full of confidence, at least he wouldn’t become frightened in front of an audience or camera when he entered the professional field.
I’ll know once I see him.
The student opened his eyes.
Then, while looking straight ahead, he slowly opened his trembling lips.
“Jealousy.”
Professor Ahn Chi-won flinched.
A heavily rasping, metallic sound was mixed into that single word.
Even though this was an entrance examination room without a microphone, his voice filled the room heavily, reaching all the way to the judges seated in the very back.
The young man standing in the center of the stage let out a long breath and continued his monologue.
“Anyone who has felt that emotion will understand. How pathetic and miserable everything you possess can feel.”
It was strange.
His face and build clearly belonged to a high school student, yet the lines coming from his mouth carried the shadow of a middle-aged man consumed by inferiority.
“Today, I listened to one of Mozart’s pieces. He apparently spent the entire night drinking until yesterday and couldn’t finish it on time, so he barely completed the score this morning. Do you know what the performance was like?”
The man’s face gradually twisted.
How could that emotion be described?
Frustration? Despair?
An ordinary actor might express it that way, but those weren’t the emotions this man was expressing.
“It was breathtaking.”
Admiration. Awe.
Faced with talent he hated yet could not help worshipping, the young man willingly fell to his knees.
“It was so breathtaking that I thought I was going insane!”
Because compared to the genius, the music he had spent his entire life honing was miserable and insignificant.
“Even today, somewhere in this city, Mozart must be drunk and laughing. I can hear it even now. That frivolous laugh.”
The young man slowly raised his trembling hand and covered his head.
Then, as if he could no longer bear it, he slammed his hand against his head.
“I feel like that laughter, like metal scraping against glass, is going to tear my brain out!”
It was the scream of someone who had not been chosen by God.
“If you gave me the desire, you should have given me the talent too! Do you know how much I’ve suffered because of this damn mediocre talent?!”
The young man’s shoulders rose and fell violently.
The corners of his eyes reddened, and soon a single tear rolled down his cheek.
Before they knew it, the professors had become members of the audience, following the direction of the young man’s gaze.
The man let out a weak laugh.
“…I suppose this is my fate. A fate where I have to live as a stone instead of a jewel.”
The man gazed desperately toward the God who had turned his back on him.
A chill ran down Professor Ahn Chi-won’s spine.
Because the man’s gaze was directed at Professor Ahn himself.
It was as if he was asking him to understand a dream he had devoted his entire life to but had ultimately failed to achieve.
There were no lines, but he expressed it with his entire body until the very end.
I wanted to shine too.
Professor Ahn Chi-won had never particularly liked Amadeus, the play about Mozart and Salieri.
The real Salieri hadn’t actually had such a bad relationship with Mozart.
The story had simply given him the image of a “mediocre man jealous of a genius” for dramatic effect.
If Salieri had been a completely fictional character, Ahn wouldn’t have minded, but he had always disliked the way real historical figures were distorted and consumed for entertainment.
However, the Salieri that student had just portrayed was different.
Regardless of the historical facts, there was something strangely convincing about him.
Wasn’t that what acting was supposed to do—to make people believe fiction was real?
In that sense, thanks to this student, his perception of Amadeus had changed.
He has considerable talent for acting.
Professor Ahn Chi-won wasn’t the only one who thought so.
“He’s in his twenties, right?”
“With skills like that, he’d definitely attract attention in the professional field.”
“How can someone that young act like that…?”
He couldn’t have reached this level through talent alone without putting in any effort.
He was clearly the combination of tremendous talent and hard work.
“How old are you?”
“I’m twenty-one.”
“Are you taking the exam for the third time?”
His acting was far too outstanding for someone who had supposedly taken the exam three times.
They couldn’t understand why he hadn’t been accepted at the places where he had previously auditioned.
“No. This is my first time taking the acting department entrance exam. I served in the military.”
“Oh, so you enlisted right after graduating high school?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Even though he probably hadn’t had much time to practice immediately after being discharged, his skills were still this good.
And since he had already completed his military service, he wouldn’t need to take a leave of absence midway through university. He could enter the professional field immediately after graduating.
Professor Ahn Chi-won folded his arms.
This is perfect. He could even go straight into graduate school after completing his undergraduate degree.
He found himself wanting to polish this rough diamond.
“An arts high school?”
“No, I went to a regular academic high school.”
“Any experience with a theater troupe or visual media?”
“The only thing I’ve done is perform in one play when I was in middle school.”
Is he lying?
He couldn’t help but doubt him.
He claimed that he had only performed in one production, and that it had been at his middle school.
There was no way someone could have this level of skill with only that experience.
“Sigh… Could he be lying?”
If that was the case, then no matter how well he acted, he would lose points.
But I can’t let a talent like this slip through my fingers.
Professor Ahn Chi-won looked at the other professors.
“Hmm… I think he’s pretending not to know anything because mentioning the title of a work could get him disqualified.”
“Ah, that’s true. Giving your name or detailed personal information during the exam would result in disqualification.”
If that was why he was lying, they could let it slide.
Knowing what information to reveal and what to keep quiet about could even be considered a positive point.
Professor Lim Hyun-sik, who was sitting beside Professor Ahn Chi-won, took the microphone and asked a question.
“Have you read many books about acting?”
“Yes! I read them and tried hard to apply what I learned to my acting.”
“What books did you read, and how did you apply them?”
“I referred to a book called An Actor Prepares and used my personal memories extensively in my acting. I also studied Uta Hagen’s and Chekhov’s methods of imagination in acting, as well as Cicely’s…”
“Oh.”
Professor Lim Hyun-sik raised the corners of his mouth.
A book like An Actor Prepares was famous as a professional acting book, so it was understandable that an applicant might have read it.
But the other books were different.
They dealt with the essence of acting and were difficult for an entrance-exam student to read.
“Of course, I also referred to Professor Ahn Chi-won’s A Study of the Articulatory Organs for Accurate Dialogue, especially the diaphragm and muscles used for voice projection…”
“Wait. You even read my paper?”
A twenty-one-year-old entrance-exam student had read a research paper written by a professor at the very university he was applying to.
Some applicants watched university students’ performances, and occasionally even a professor’s work.
But this was the first time someone had actually read their academic papers.
“I wanted to know what kind of professors were at this school and what I would learn from them. I thought there was no better source of information than the professors’ own papers.”
“That must have been pretty difficult.”
“No, sir. I learned a lot because you wrote it in an easy-to-understand way.”
His answers were good, and his acting was so skilled that he could hold his own against professionals.
However, it was still too early to say that his first-round acceptance was guaranteed.
“Then the only thing left is his grades.”
As Professor Ahn Chi-won muttered, if his grades were terrible, he would fail no matter how high a practical score they gave him.
The first round for the acting department at Korea Arts University selected students based on 60% practical performance and 40% academic grades.
Even if we give him a perfect score for the practical exam, we can’t accept him if his grades are terrible.
Professor Ahn Chi-won anxiously flipped through the documents containing Yeon Gijun’s information, and the other professors did the same.
Smiles soon spread across their faces.
“Looks like he has the best grades among everyone who took the exam today.”
“Thank you.”
“With grades like these, you could apply to Korea University too.”
“I’m only planning to apply to acting departments.”
“Why? Why not apply to other departments too?”
“Because I want to bet everything I have on my dream of acting.”
His attitude was excellent as well.
Another professor took the microphone and asked,
“Last question. What kind of actor do you want to become?”
“I want to be an actor who never gives up.”
Professor Ahn Chi-won stretched his neck forward and looked at him, wondering what he meant.
“I know very well that being an actor on stage doesn’t mean you’ll always have moments when you shine.”
At those words, each professor became lost in thought.
They, too, had experienced difficult moments when no one paid any attention to them.
“There will definitely be many days when I fall, and many moments when I want to give up. But I want to keep moving forward.”
Even so, they had continued moving forward and eventually reached where they were now.
After a brief silence, Professor Ahn Chi-won took the microphone.
“Yes… Good work. That’s all for the exam.”
“Thank you.”
And so, Yeon Gijun’s practical entrance examination for the Acting Department of Korea Arts University came to an end.
As Professor Ahn Chi-won watched him walk away, the corners of his mouth lifted.
I definitely want to work with that young man someday.
