Chapter 06
“Again.”
“…It’s still too ear—”
“Again.”
“…It’s still—”
“Again.”
“……”
“Again.”
“…I didn’t even say anything that time.”
Leo glared at Luisa in disbelief.
Looking completely unsurprised, Luisa pointed at his feet.
“You have to be Romeo from the moment you step on stage. This is Romeo’s first entrance. A single flower blooming in the blood-soaked streets of Verona, torn apart by the feud between two families. The man who falls in love with his enemy. Romeo Montague.”
The man who fell in love with his enemy’s daughter.
At those words, Leo frowned.
Leo Pier.
That was his real name.
Not Montague, but the next heir to the Imperial House of Pier.
After leaving the Imperial Palace, he had seen countless stage plays, so he knew one thing for certain.
No one acted like this.
Acting wasn’t about becoming Romeo. It was about actors with exceptionally handsome faces, ridiculously funny looks, extraordinary height, or unusual stature making use of their own strengths.
With exaggerated pronunciations.
With signature gestures and mannerisms.
Yet Luisa kept insisting that he become Romeo Montague.
“On that stage, you’re Romeo Montague, slave.”
Despite buying him for fifty million Derks, she still hadn’t asked for his name after ten days.
In fact, she barely addressed him at all. Whenever she did, she simply called him, “Slave.”
Whenever they happened to come close enough to touch, she would instinctively step back.
“I don’t like physical contact.”
She would mutter strange things like that.
And now she wanted him to become an actor.
An actor?
What kind of perverted game is she planning this time?
After being bought and sold for nine years, Leo Pier had eventually come to a simple realization.
I’ve grown into quite a handsome man.
Around the age of fourteen, noblewomen had begun stealing glances at him.
Households that had once used him only for menial labour started trying to bring him inside.
Every single time…
He ran.
It wasn’t because he hated the idea of selling his body.
If it meant staying alive, he would have accepted even that.
The real danger lay elsewhere.
If a noble got a close look at his face…
If, in the worst case, rumours reached the current Emperor or his closest followers…
To prevent that, he fled.
Eventually, he lost his way in the forest and ended up being sold as a slave.
Fifty million Derks…
He remembered the eyes of the woman who had paid such an outrageous sum for him.
Her crimson eyes sparkled.
Her lips curved into a bright smile.
She’s insane.
That was the simple conclusion Leo reached about Luisa.
But after years of surviving by concealing his identity and enduring every hardship imaginable, he had learned one undeniable truth.
People who were genuinely crazy…
…were often easier to use.
So he decided to become Luisa’s actor.
Even if he escaped now, he’d probably starve to death on the streets—or end up captured by slave traders all over again.
Luisa Messena.
He knew her name.
As a child, he’d seen her several times during Imperial festivals.
She was the only granddaughter of Duke Messena, a loyal supporter of the Imperial Family.
When she was young, she’d been a well-behaved girl.
Somewhere along the way, however, she’d gone astray.
Now she was infamous throughout the Empire.
The notorious wayward young lady.
Which meant there could only be one reason she’d bought him.
“Take off your clothes.”
He had prepared himself from the very first day she gave him that order.
He’d always been careful never to let anyone touch him—not a woman, not anyone.
Still…
He knew the day would eventually come.
But when he opened his eyes…
She wasn’t standing in front of him.
Instead, the next day she merely said,
“Are you absolutely sure you washed properly? I can’t trust the hygiene standards in this world. Show some consideration for your scene partner.”
After that…
Luisa never once summoned him to her bed.
Nor did she force him to do anything strange.
If anything, she repeatedly warned him that if he didn’t want to perform on stage, he absolutely had to tell her beforehand.
“I’d be in trouble if you started claiming I forced you to do something against your will. Oh, and just in case—don’t call me ‘Master,’ either.”
From that moment on…
He made a point of calling her Master every chance he got.
He enjoyed watching that incomprehensible expression on her face shatter every time she heard it.
Her eyebrows would knit together as though she’d swallowed a mouthful of dust.
She would blush with embarrassment and snap at him because of his insolent attitude.
He liked every bit of it.
Maybe one day she’d finally explode.
Maybe she’d strike him.
Or reveal the depraved intentions expected of the infamous young lady.
He wouldn’t mind that either.
Yes.
That would suit the notorious Lady Luisa.
Once she revealed her true colours…
He would seduce her if he had to.
Anything to ensure he could continue growing up safely.
Just a little longer.
Just enough time…
For the Emperor to completely forget about him.
For the Emperor to lower his guard.
And for the day Leo could drive a blade into the Emperor’s back.
But for that to happen, the first priority was to bring the woman’s desire to the surface.
Leo snatched the script from the woman’s hand—the woman who had been looking at him as though he were nothing more than an object, or perhaps a chess piece.
“The beginning’s boring anyway. Let’s start with the important part. Here. This scene.”
The place Leo pointed to was the first kiss between Romeo and Juliet.
Luisa smiled with a faintly sinister curve of her lips.
She briefly looked up into Leo’s golden eyes before striding onto the stage.
What kind of noblewoman walked like that? And who pinned up their hair carelessly with nothing but a quill pen?
Every time Leo saw Luisa like this, he found himself confused.
Is this really the infamous villainess I know?
“Fine. Let’s do it.”
Luisa narrowed her crimson eyes.
Leo hesitated before reaching toward her. He had intended to touch her cheek—or perhaps her waist—but the instant his hand moved, she abruptly widened the distance between them.
Then she disappeared behind the stage and climbed up to the second-floor dressing room.
Peeking over the balcony railing of the stage façade, Luisa looked down.
Leo frowned.
“What are you—”
“Romeo.”
Luisa wasn’t looking at him.
Instead, she gazed upward.
At that very moment, the makeshift pin holding her hair in place came loose, and her long black hair spilled down around her.
Without realizing it, Leo stared.
For some inexplicable reason, she commanded every bit of his attention.
He had never experienced a moment like this in the little inn theatres where he had performed before.
Unlike the drunken actors who bellowed exaggerated performances at the top of their lungs, she spoke in little more than a whisper—
Yet every word reached him perfectly.
“Why are you called Romeo?”
She was a girl who seemed slightly irritable, painfully delicate.
Looking at Luisa, Leo saw that girl at the same time.
Who was it that this girl resented so deeply?
“Reject your father. Renounce your name.”
And who was it she loved so desperately?
Leo wanted to know.
Then Luisa—
No, Juliet—
looked down at him with heavy-lidded eyes.
He froze.
“And in place of that name… take me.”
Leo bit his lip.
His fingertips burned.
That wasn’t how Juliet looked at Romeo in the original script.
Juliet was supposed to be an innocent fourteen-year-old girl, hopelessly in love, speaking only to herself.
But the Juliet standing before him now was unmistakably a woman who had always known Romeo would come climbing to her balcony.
“On this stage, you’re Romeo Montague. You’re a slave.”
At that instant, Leo finally understood what she’d meant.
Luisa was Juliet.
But not the shallow, lovestruck heroine from the conventional script Luisa had shown him before.
She pretended to wait for love—
when in truth, she was the one who seized it.
She was Juliet.
But she was Luisa’s Juliet.
A woman like this transformed the story completely.
Running away from the man chosen by her family to marry the man she truly loved no longer felt like the foolish romance of a naïve young girl.
It became the story of a bold, rebellious woman.
Without thinking, Leo found himself nodding.
Now I understand why Romeo loved Juliet.
This wasn’t merely love.
It was rebellion.
A rebellion against the foolish old men who endlessly repeated meaningless wars.
“I’ll do it.”
Leo answered.
At once, Luisa beamed.
“That was the first time you’ve actually been good.”
“…!”
It felt as though a light had suddenly been switched on in a dark room.
Leo’s immersion shattered.
Reality came crashing back.
He stared at her in disbelief.
This… is acting?
People actually act like this?
He had never heard of such a thing.
* * *
Yes. This is Method acting.
Method.
In Korea, the word became popular through comedy shows, but in reality it originated from the acting theory developed by the director and actor Konstantin Stanislavski.
The idea was simple:
Actors should behave as naturally as possible so the audience would believe that what was happening on stage was actually real.
So how had actors performed before that?
Like they were delivering speeches.
Like they were singing.
Like they were dancing.
The theatre of Shakespeare’s era was no different.
There were prescribed gestures for playing Macbeth.
Prescribed gestures for playing Juliet.
Actors moved almost like dancers, and audiences admired whoever executed those movements most beautifully.
Of course, that doesn’t mean older styles of acting are inferior to modern ones.
Some productions still require a more stylised, expressive performance.
But that wasn’t the kind of theatre I wanted.
The play I wanted demanded Method acting.
When people looked at Juliet, they needed to mistake her for Luisa.
When they looked at Romeo, they needed to mistake him for Leo Pier.
They would empathise with the young couple rebelling against the older generation.
Eventually, they might even begin thinking about the people behind those characters.
Perhaps Luisa, too, is simply another young victim caught in the complicated politics surrounding her duchy…
Of course she isn’t.
Luisa’s psychopathic personality wasn’t something the older generation created.
She did that herself.
But that wasn’t the important part.
The important part was that theatre possessed this kind of power.
Within the framework of illusion, it could awaken limitless empathy.
It could make people think:
A child who was forced into a political engagement at just nine years old…
Who lost her parents early…
Who grew up beneath the strict rule of a harsh grandfather…
She’s only twenty-two.
Maybe… she’s a little pitiful.
If I could make even a fraction of the audience feel that way—
then, just as Arnaud wanted, people would leave the theatre not cursing me…
but pitying me.
And there was one more thing.
You.
Leo Pier, standing before me now, playing Romeo.
People would naturally remember him too.
As the future Emperor who would bring a new kind of politics to the Empire.
“Is it still too early in the morning?”
After he’d gone through two more lines without hearing me say Again, Leo looked at me with a bewildered expression.
I let out a small laugh.
“Your delivery, projection, and pronunciation were all fine. Why would I stop you?”
“…”
“The moment you immersed yourself in the role, you immediately got better. See? This is my power.”
This—
was my directing.
Did he really think I’d become one of the hottest directors in Daehangno for nothing?
Smirking arrogantly, I crossed one leg over the other.
“Now then… again.”
