'This isn't a dream...... is it? Me, Eun Tae-il.'
He rubbed his eyes a dozen times, and the clear skin and the big round eyes in the mirror stayed exactly where they were.
He pinched the face, he shook his head, and the smaller face and the sharper features in the glass did not budge.
"Eun Tae-il the Face Genius. Eun Tae-il the brat."
No-Manners, Psycho Tae-il, Eun Tae-il Time, and on and on......
He set the mirror down and muttered his way through the labels that had followed this face's owner around.
"Even among idols they called his visuals all-time. Ugh......"
Eun Tae-il's memories and Seung-chan's knowledge mixed together, and a light headache came up with them.
Eun Tae-il had debuted in style at 19 with the group DTA.
DTA as a group had no pull at all. Eun Tae-il was another matter.
All-time visuals, Face Genius, the labels stuck to him, and he went up to star in one go.
Early success. That was what ruined him.
-Number one on the list of celebrities stylists and managers least want to work with
-Stingy about sharing...... Eun Tae-il, the cheapskate of cheapskates
-Terminal case of celebrity: stands right in front of you and relays what he says through his manager.
-Went on an overseas location shoot, claimed a bad stomach and took himself off to hospital. Didn't like the hotel food and took it out on everyone......
-Manager said one word about not being late, so he starved the man, no meals. Wouldn't even let him eat a convenience-store lunchbox
'Going after a man's food is over the line.'
Thanks to one controversy after another the high popularity wilted, and the group lost what little force it had.
Even the huge fan club that had massed around him since debut turned anti.
'That fine face got him his contract renewal without trouble.'
The other members, somewhere between third-rate and second-rate, failed to renew. Eun Tae-il renewed, and switched over to acting.
The real trouble started there.
'Eun Tae-il and the agency both leaned too hard on the face.'
At first the agency's muscle got him lead roles and it looked spectacular, but the problem was the acting.
The stiff delivery, the one unchanging expression: every project he appeared in produced its own controversy.
The first production flopped, and the second and the third failed one after another.
[The actor you can trust to skip]
Before long a label he should never have picked up was stuck to him too.
With the projects failing one after another, investors stopped looking at him, and so did any writer or director with a name.
What came next was predictable.
Lead to supporting role, then down and down to throwaway variety-show guest.
Eun Tae-il still did not come to his senses, and the company, deciding he was finished, turned its back without a second thought.
'So he isn't even worth selling for clicks anymore. And he's still Eun Tae-il.'
He looked down out the window. Not a sign of anyone.
He had assumed that with a celebrity carried into a hospital there would be a reporter or two who had caught the scent.
Which meant Eun Tae-il was not even worth selling for clicks.
Looking at a forgotten star had always left a bad taste.
Seung-chan sat down and ran a hand along the jawline in the mirror.
'The face, though. The face is unreal. They didn't call him the Face Genius for nothing.'
Seung-chan went over it, piece by piece.
Pale skin with a sheen to it, long lashes, every feature sitting exactly where it should.
The Face Genius label still held.
'But me, as Eun Tae-il. What happened to the original me?'
The thought reached back, suddenly, to his own self. To Kim Seung-chan.
Seung-chan picked up the phone beside him and hurried a search into it.
-Lime Entertainment CEO Kim Seung-chan falls from apartment building, transported in cardiac arrest......
-Kim Seung-chan had been on the roof with his wife and a friend at the time of the accident......
-Nothing unusual found in the accident involving a Mr. Kim...... ruled accidental death.
-Actor Kim Yul carries out the coffin of the late CEO Kim Seung-chan......
-Lee Seung-ah sends off her husband, the late CEO Kim Seung-chan......
-The agency's actors and staff see off the late CEO Kim Seung-chan......
What had happened moments ago was already a year in the past.
It was disorienting, but Seung-chan kept a hard grip on himself.
He worked through the articles, and when he reached a photo of a man walking out of the funeral hall with a coffin on his shoulder and a set face, Seung-chan's eyes turned vicious.
'Kim Yul.'
Kim Yul carrying his coffin out with a cast on his leg, and behind him Lee Seung-ah weeping and collapsing, the whole thing photographed like it was meant to be seen.
Under the two of them, giving performances they had never managed on screen, ran the comments.
-Thought Kim Yul was a lightweight but he's impressive. Didn't know he had that in him.
-Carrying your friend's coffin can't be easy. That's loyalty T_T.
-Apparently he's close with the widow too. They say Lee Seung-ah fainted a few times.
-Doesn't that accident seem off to anyone? What if the friend and the wife were in on......
-You watch too many dramas?
-Let's at least pay our respects to the deceased
The longer he looked at the funeral photos, the more his gut twisted, as though his insides were knotting.
In Lee Seung-ah weeping in white mourning dress, and in Kim Yul carrying the coffin out in silence, there was nothing left of what they had been on that roof.
Seung-chan's thumb moved faster over the screen.
-Photos of actors Kim Yul and Lee Seung-ah's private lives...... illegally circulated composites? Legal action hinted
-Actors Lee Seung-ah and Kim Yul, friends comforting each other in grief. "We did think it could be misread"......
-Actor Kim Yul: "I can't forget carrying my friend's coffin"...... vows to answer with better work.
-Lee Seung-ah: "Kim Yul and I are good friends"...... will share the grief and answer with good work.
-Lime Ent acquired by the giant agency Glom Ent...... rises to the country's top full-service agency.
-Lime Ent CEO Lee Seung-ah takes office as co-CEO of Glom Ent.
-It must have been hard for both of you. Rooting for you!
-Honestly they could date and it'd be fine.
-If they actually dated it'd feel gross though. Heard the photos weren't composites......
-Rooting for you twoo!
-Do those two not feel off to anyone? Glom suddenly buying them out is weird too.
-Putting it in neutral on this one.
A year from the accident went past fast under Seung-chan's thumb.
Lime Ent, the company he had raised himself, had been merged into the giant Glom Ent, and Lee Seung-ah and Kim Yul were both working away as Glom Ent actors.
'Pff. Answer with better work. They must be grinding their teeth down to the root.'
What Lee Seung-ah and Kim Yul had been thinking was obvious.
By rights they would have cut a good image into the public with their thin little performances at the funeral, then run the media play: we comforted each other, and feelings grew.
Then go public with the romance, bank the goodwill, and over the long run swallow Lime Ent whole and clean.
'Those photos were a masterstroke.'
But the photos Seung-chan had sent made the press, and a full-size scandal broke.
Lee Seung-ah and Kim Yul would not have had it in them to clean up a scandal like that.
So they had handed Lime Ent over cheap to Glom Ent, which had been circling it all along, and put themselves under its roof.
The acquisition had gone through in such a rush that even Glom Ent had not got all of it.
'It'll all have to be settled one day...... but not now.'
Seung-chan turned back to the mirror.
A face as white as fresh cream, dark brows, a high straight nose, and a jawline sharp enough to cut on.
Eun Tae-il. This one had been born to be an actor.
'Taking a face like this all the way to the bottom is its own kind of talent.'
Like Narcissus catching sight of himself in the well, Seung-chan looked into the mirror and could not keep the flutter down.
Could the time ahead be a kind of payment for a man who had only ever lived for other people?
No. Dream or not, it made no difference.
From here on he was going to live for one thing only, the dream of being an actor.
"Aah. Aah— hello. Aah."
And for that, Seung-chan, no, Tae-il, took his first step.
Tae-il opened his mouth wide to loosen the muscles of his face and tried his voice out lightly.
The tone was neither high nor low. An ordinary tone.
"Chapopkin and Chisya...... ow."
He tried the hard drill he had once run every day, and the muscles around his mouth and his tongue stopped wherever they liked.
His mouth still ached with it. This face had clearly never been trained properly.
'Dream or no dream, start from the basics. My mouth hurts.'
It was hard work, and it made Tae-il laugh anyway.
Just being able to start again was enough.
***
A few days later, Tae-il was discharged.
Finding Eun Tae-il's place was no trouble.
The address came to him on its own.
"You made money. You could have lived somewhere decent."
Standing in front of an old, small apartment block, Tae-il shook his head.
He had heard Eun Tae-il was stingy with everyone and saved money to the point of cruelty, and there was nothing to show for it.
"First time I've seen anyone this talentless at investing."
Tae-il went through the accounts and shook his head.
The one mercy was that he had not borrowed money to play stocks or coins.
There was enough to live on, at least, so he could put everything into acting for a while.
Back inside, Tae-il picked up the script that had been thrown down on the desk.
[KVS Weekend Serial, Families Are All Like This]
The problem entry he had seen on the schedule.
Tae-il flipped through it fast.
Past a great many lines that had nothing to do with him, near the back, his character sat marked in highlighter.
'Booth Guy at the Youngest Daughter's University Festival.'
Of the main figures in "Families Are All Like This," the youngest daughter carried the least weight.
His character was a bit part without a name, barely connected even to that youngest daughter.
Tout the youngest daughter and her friend as they came to enjoy the campus festival, take the water balloons they threw, and his screen time was done.
'So he drank himself stupid. Sleeping pills on top of it.'
Once a leading man, now handed a joke of a bit part. It seemed he had not been able to sleep on it.
For a man as high-nosed as Eun Tae-il, taking a role like this would have felt like humiliation.
Tae-il clicked his tongue.
He had seen more than one or two people who could not get out from under their own past glory.
Tae-il loosened his throat and stood in front of the mirror.
"Welcome! How about a balloon......"
The situation and the lines were simple, as befitted a bit part.
Pull the youngest daughter and her friend over to the stall while they were out enjoying the festival, take the water balloons they threw, and that was the end of it.
A bit part that passed by, literally.
For Eun Tae-il, once a leading man, the role was humiliation itself.
'There's really nothing in this part.'
He narrowed his eyes and went back over the script, and the names printed under the title caught him.
[PD Song Yeong-tae]
The man in charge of this drama, and a PD who would take it as an insult to be called anything but the biggest old-school hardhead in the business.
'And the man running the set is PD Song, of all people. The worst possible matchup with Eun Tae-il.'
The PD Song he knew would never have given Eun Tae-il even a part this small.
Tae-il's hand moved faster over the pages.
It stopped on the page with his own handful of lines.
'Now I see why the offer came. Writer Lee is mad for a pretty picture.'
An edge came up in Tae-il's eyes.
The scene existed to spend Eun Tae-il's looks cheaply and pull the viewers' attention.
A pretty picture is talked about all by itself.
Eun Tae-il might be past it, but the looks they had called Face Genius were still there.
In that case......
'If they're handing me an opening, I'll use it for everything it's worth.'
Splash— Splash—
Tae-il threw water over his face, again and again.
Then he put himself in front of the mirror and worked on making the expression land.
It was hard at first, and as he kept at it the feel of it came, piece by piece.
'The moment the water hits is definitely going on camera.'
For another actor that would be a humiliating cut. Eun Tae-il was another matter.
In the mirror, Eun Tae-il's soaked face was, if anything, giving off light.
But......
'The problem is the detail.'
The trouble came from somewhere else.
In the mirror, sunscreen was running down the face in ugly streaks.
He looked like a grade-schooler who had tried on their mother's makeup and ruined it.
Wiping the sunscreen off, Eun Tae-il thought hard.
'Looking like this, I'm cut from the edit.'
The on-set makeup team does not fuss over a bit-part actor's details.
Making the picture come out pretty even under the water was, in the end, Tae-il's own job.
He worked the makeup over, and then Tae-il kept at the expression for a long time.
***
Tae-il opened his eyes before daybreak and headed for Yeouido.
At the exit of Yeouido Station the buses were standing, the way they always were.
[KVS Weekend Serial, Families Are All Like This]
Tae-il found the crew bus with the name card on it and went slowly up the steps.
"Good morning."
He bowed his head as he came in, and the crew, sitting and chatting, reacted.
'Hold on. Isn't that Eun Tae-il?'
'Eun Tae-il is riding the crew bus? Why?'
'Live long enough and you see everything. Am I seeing things?'
Whether or not he knew the crew were muttering, Tae-il took an empty window seat at the back.
'I'd find it strange too. That Eun Tae-il, out before dawn and getting on the crew bus.'
He could see a few of them glancing over. It did not matter.
Being able to act again was enough on its own.
"Pulling out!"
The driver's big voice went up, and the bus started down the road.