Chapter 7 · 9 min
Chapter 7
Audition
“Damn it...”
Han Dohwa, a child actress who had shown outstanding acting skills from a young age and was now in her fourth year of acting.
Even with those outstanding acting skills, she couldn’t hide the gloomy mood she was feeling right now.
“No... It’s not like I picked a fight because I wanted to pick a fight...”
Just like every society and every human relationship, child actors had their own gatherings too.
A gathering anyone could join once they had built up even a little recognition.
So most of the people who came today already knew each other.
And they had only been acting territorial toward the few people they didn’t know.
‘Oh, isn’t that the person from that famous smartphone commercial lately?’
‘Oh! It really is!’
‘No... She’s even prettier in person...?’
Dohwa had simply been unlucky.
‘Ah, against someone like her, I think we’d get overwhelmed unless Dohwa unnie steps in.’
‘Unnie... I’m kind of scared to go up to that person too...’
‘Dohwa unnie! Show us your power!’
‘Huh? O-Okay!’
She didn’t want to do something like this and knew she shouldn’t, but what could she do.
“What, there’s a kid here I’ve never seen before too?”
When she was the one playing the leader in the group.
“Damn... Now I just feel worse...”
Seeing Dohwa like that, the children around her watched her carefully and tried to comfort her.
“U-Unnie! You can pass the audition, beat that person with your skills! Then tell her she doesn’t act her age!”
“That’s right! Cheer up!”
“The audition’s about to start too! Revenge isn’t far away!”
In fact, since Dohwa had entered the entertainment industry back in kindergarten, she had one chronic problem.
“R-Right! I’ll do my best! Later, I’ll crush her with my skills!”
‘S-She didn’t think I looked pathetic, did she...?’
She was weak against friends her own age.
Extremely so.
Even in situations where she would have asserted herself if the other person were an adult.
If a kid her age asked her for something, she would hesitate and eventually bend her own opinion.
For Dohwa, who didn’t have even a single close friend, the weight carried by the words ‘friend her own age’ was enormous.
“Anyway, just how old is she...?”
For girls, age ten was around the time secondary sexual characteristics slowly started appearing, so it was fairly easy to judge age.
If someone was taller than Dohwa, she would assume they were either older or the same age.
If they were shorter, there was a high chance they were younger, though sometimes the same age.
By that standard, she had placed Mina in the latter category and started speaking informally to her upon first meeting.
It wasn’t like she had thoughtlessly spoken rudely for no reason.
“And technically, I’ve been a senior in the industry for several years...”
More than anything, in the entertainment industry, age only mattered when you were very young. Career experience came first.
‘Still, I was the one who picked the fight first...’
Her father often said that someone who refused to take responsibility for what they did was not yet a complete person.
Even though she knew she shouldn’t have done it, she had given in to the pressure from the children around her and picked a fight, so she really had been in the wrong.
‘Still...’
Dohwa, who could count on one hand the number of times she had been this humiliated in her life, knew she had been wrong.
But because she resented Mina, she developed a slight grudge against her.
“Alright, we will now begin the audition in earnest!”
At those words, Dohwa and the children who had been gathered together returned to their seats.
“Dohwa, is something wrong?”
“No... Nothing’s wrong...”
“Ah! You’re already preparing for your acting, right?! How admirable.”
‘...I’m just genuinely depressed.’
Dohwa gave her manager a slight smile, then picked up the audition script again.
She had read it so many times that it was already worn and ragged.
“Phew...”
The protagonist’s daughter, Seo Hayoung.
This was the one role she truly wanted to win, so she had prepared for it diligently.
‘She felt similar to me...’
Seo Hayoung’s parents were divorced.
Of her mother and father, Seo Hayoung had gone with her father, and although she felt hurt that her father was always busy with work and showed little interest in her.
‘She hides that hurt and always pretends to be cheerful so she won’t make even her cold father worry.’
She was, in a way, a foolish child who cared too much about others and constantly accommodated them.
Dohwa felt that foolish part resembled herself.
‘And maybe because of that personality?’
She also liked the fact that even after the zombie outbreak began, Hayoung remained unusually calm for a child.
‘Most of the roles I’ve acted until now were usually a burden to the people around them.’
But Seo Hayoung didn’t have any frustrating traits where she caused trouble simply because she was young.
If anything, she even showed sides that were better than the adults.
“Right! I have to do my best!”
When her passion overcame her gloomy mood, Dohwa felt as if the fog that had been clouding her head had cleared.
“Number 1, come in!”
“Yes!”
“Sebom! Do your best!”
Jung Sebom, who had been called in as number 1, was also a younger member of the group, so Dohwa lightly encouraged her before she went inside.
“Okay! Dohwa unnie!”
And about three minutes after Sebom went in.
“Sniff!”
“Sebom, it’s okay! You can do another role! Don’t cry!”
‘...No, what happened in there for Sebom to come out crying?’
Sebom wasn’t particularly bad at acting.
If anything, she was one of the better child actors here.
‘And Sebom came out crying...?’
“Next, number 2, come in!”
At the sound of the next number being called, the feeling in Dohwa’s heart, which had been closer to anticipation than nervousness, became slightly heavier.
“Dohwa.”
“Y-Yeah.”
“Don’t be nervous. You’re the best one here.”
“...Thanks, unnie.”
‘Right, no matter how the other kids do, I need to do well first.’
With that mindset, she began immersing herself in Seo Hayoung ahead of time.
“Phew...”
“Number 17, come in!”
‘It’s my turn...!’
“Yes!”
When she opened the door and entered the audition room.
Dohwa saw three people seated there: the screenwriter, the chief director, and the cinematographer of the film.
‘I-I am nervous.’
But a reasonable amount of nervousness was actually helpful.
Dohwa reequipped the mindset she always used whenever she was nervous and introduced herself energetically.
“Hello! Number 17! I’m Han Dohwa!”
“Yes, Actress Han Dohwa. You’ve familiarized yourself with the script in advance, correct?”
At the question from Noh Seojun, the chief director of this film and one of the directors she had always respected, Dohwa answered even more confidently.
“Of course!”
“Then shall we take a look starting from Scene 8?”
“Yes!”
‘Scene 8...’
As she drew up her emotions, she recalled the parts she had analyzed about Scene 8.
‘It was the scene where she asks Dad to let her go see Mom during this holiday...’
“I’ll read the father’s lines. If there are any actions you want to do, I’m sorry, but please act them out toward empty space.”
“Yes!”
She thought about how Seo Hayoung would feel at this moment.
‘She’d speak brightly and energetically, but in truth, she’d be really nervous.’
She expressed that emotion.
“Dad! I-I want to go see Mom this holiday...!”
She forcibly kept herself from thinking about how the judges would see her.
Because if she considered that too, her acting would become awkward.
And she emptied her mind of every other distracting thought as well.
Only the feeling that she was Seo Hayoung.
She held onto nothing but that.
“Your mom? Hmm... What should I do...”
“Can’t you make it work somehow...?”
“...Alright, let’s do that.”
“R-Really?! Yes! Dad, I love you!”
Dohwa imagined an imaginary father standing in front of her and mimed hugging him.
“Yes, that’s enough.”
“Phew...”
At Seojun’s cut signal, Dohwa stopped immersing herself and took a moment to breathe deeply.
“Hmm... For now, that was the best performance among the participants so far.”
“Th-Thank you!”
“You’ve passed the first round. Later, we’ll gather only the first-round qualifiers and hold a separate second round, so please wait for a while.”
“Yes!”
Dohwa suppressed her overflowing emotion and surging sense of accomplishment as much as possible, bowed to the judges, and left the audition room.
“You did well! Dohwa!”
“Yeah! Unnie!”
When she openly expressed her happiness outside.
The children who had already failed gathered around Dohwa.
“Wow! Unnie, you passed?!”
“As expected of Dohwa unnie!”
“Right, if not you, who else could play a role like this?”
“Hehe, thanks, everyone!”
She basked in the pleasant feeling only briefly.
Then Dohwa gathered herself again to prepare for the second round.
“Next! Number 21, please come in!”
“M-My child went to the bathroom for a moment! Please wait just a little...!”
‘Oh, that person?’
It was the woman who had been standing beside the unnie who had humiliated Dohwa earlier.
‘Her mom, maybe?’
She looked so much like that unnie that her appearance alone was enough to make someone mistake her for a celebrity.
‘More importantly.’
Being late at such an important moment.
‘She doesn’t even have the basics down.’
Even if Dohwa had picked the fight first, Mina had still humiliated her.
Dohwa wondered what expression Mina would make when she came back from the bathroom and found out it was already her turn.
Even Dohwa herself thought it was a little petty and childish.
But she waited for Mina to return quickly while imagining it with a small feeling of satisfaction.
“Ah, Mina! Hurry!”
“Huh? It’s already my turn? Why is the order going so fast?”
But when Mina appeared with an attitude completely opposite of what Dohwa had imagined, indignation surged up inside her for a moment.
‘No! What does she think an audition is!’
That carefree attitude, as if she wasn’t even one percent nervous or flustered.
Dohwa was certain that Director Noh Seojun, who was serious about acting, would definitely scold someone like that harshly.
And this time, once again, she imagined what expression Mina would have when she came out of the audition room.
Then, a few minutes later.
Click.
“Ah... Was it a mistake to eat spicy pig’s feet yesterday? My stomach keeps hurting...”
“See? Mom told you not to eat it.”
“Mom, if I go to the bathroom again, the second round won’t start yet, right?”
“Probably not?”
‘...Huh?’
...She passed the first round?
“Mina, just hurry and go for now. I’ll contact you after I see what happens.”
Once again, Dohwa’s imagination missed the mark.
_____________
“Alright, the first-round auditions are now all finished. We’ll display the list of qualifiers on the TV, so please check it once again.”
I looked at the TV where the names were listed.
“Huh? Including me, there are only five people who passed the first round?”
‘No, why is the cutoff so high.’
Anyway.
[Ryu Mina (10)]
‘...So they reveal the ages too.’
I had a feeling something troublesome was about to happen, so I hurriedly tried to leave the area.
“Hey!”
But the voice calling me from behind made my attempt to run fail.
“Oh, isn’t that my friend Han Dohwa? What’s up?”
‘Wow, she’s fast.’
This is why I don’t really like diligent kids.
“Ryu Mina! Y-You said you were older than me!”
“Huh? When did I?”
“Y-You did!”
“What are you talking about?”
I swear I never once said with my own mouth that I was older than Han Dohwa.