Chapter 18

Chapter 18

The first thing that stood out was the outfit.

‘...Look at that level of detail.’

The casting director’s occupational instincts kicked in before she knew it.

The kind of worn-out look a styling team could create in a day?

‘No.’

This was different from the artificial age you got by crumpling new clothes, sanding them down, and spraying them with bleach.

The hanger marks on the shoulders.

Those only appeared after years of hanging clothes to dry in a home without a dryer.

‘Park Songhu went this far? And where did he even find clothes like that?’

Park Songhu.

A man who had done watch commercials and three cosmetics ads alone, whose modeling fees earned off that face until last year had become something of a running joke in the industry.

More importantly... he was one of the celebrities famous for dressing well.

Seeing an actor that obsessed with fashion wearing a hoodie that looked like it had come straight out of a clothing donation bin was shocking.

“...”

Jung Jaeseung was looking at something else.

The shoes.

Old sneakers.

The toes had worn down first.

Jung Jaeseung pulled the notebook on the table closer.

[Taesik does not buy clothes. His clothes grow old with him.]

“...”

You could manufacture clothes for an actor to wear.

Pay the costume team enough and they could create something even more convincingly worn than that.

But manufactured wear had no order.

What frayed first and what frayed later never quite matched.

The clothes Park Songhu wore today had the correct order.

The collar went first, then the sleeves, while the print had gradually cracked from repeated washing.

The worn shoes were the same.

And Actor Park Songhu had walked all the way here wearing all of it.

Through hallways where people stared.

Without showing a shred of embarrassment.

‘...Not bad. Yes, that’s the attitude an actor should have.’

Step—

The man standing by the door walked inside.

His left foot went first.

His right foot dragged lightly across the floor.

Because his right knee never fully straightened, his right shoulder dipped once with every step.

That wasn’t all.

His back was hunched.

His neck jutted past the line of his shoulders.

Jung Jaeseung’s gaze sharpened.

He had visited countless real work sites for this project, and the upper body of someone who had spent years carrying materials on one shoulder looked exactly like that.

“...Uh.”

The assistant director standing beside the door instinctively leaned back as that walk passed him.

Actors had been entering and leaving through this door all day, but this was the first one who walked without looking toward the judges.

He simply stared at the floor in front of himself.

Meanwhile, whispers spread through the waiting room.

‘What is that?’

Oh Junghan was chewing on the rim of a paper cup as he stared at the monitor.

He had been standing in the back row moments ago, but at some point he had moved all the way to the front.

‘...Why is he walking like that?’

Cha Minseok muttered beside him.

“...Did he hurt his leg?”

“On the way here today?”

“How else could someone walk like that?”

“D-Don’t tell me... that walk is acting too?”

“!”

Back in the audition room.

Jung Jaeseung began speaking with a meaningful smile.

“Actor Park. Been a while.”

“...”

Jung Jaeseung remembered Park Songhu from several years ago perfectly.

Not because his acting had been memorable, of course, but because Park Songhu had taught him that a human face could practically emit light.

‘He was a rookie back then.’

It was strange.

Even as a rookie, Park Songhu had radiated defiance, yet now he seemed subdued.

There was something calmer about him.

‘People change after going through storms in life. In Park Songhu’s case, I suppose that was his personality scandal.’

With that thought, Jung Jaeseung held out his hand.

“...”

But Park Songhu did not immediately reach for it.

Only after rubbing his palm several times against the side of his pants did he offer his hand.

‘Hah. He’s already become Kim Taesik.’

Jung Jaeseung took the hand.

‘No strength.’

This was not someone used to shaking hands.

A hand that didn’t know whether to grip or simply be held, and so waited for the other person to let go first.

It matched perfectly with Kim Taesik from the tiny-room village.

Intrigued, Jung Jaeseung asked the same question he had once asked in the past.

“What did you eat for breakfast?”

The production company representative subtly shifted his gaze.

That question meant the audition had already begun.

The polite speech was proof.

“...Nothing yet.”

Jung Jaeseung wrote something in his notebook.

“How did you get here?”

“...By car.”

“Long trip?”

“...It was fine.”

Every sentence trailed off.

His delivery sounded as though he had no intention of projecting his voice.

Normally, speaking this softly in front of five judges would be the first thing someone criticized.

Because he sounded like he was mumbling.

“Hah.”

And yet Jung Jaeseung said nothing about it.

He simply wrote another word in his notebook.

The casting director swallowed and asked the production company representative.

“Did Actor Park Songhu always sound like that?”

“...No. Not in dramas.”

A folding chair had been placed in the middle of the studio.

The man walked over and sat down.

He did not lean against the backrest.

He perched at the edge of the chair, knees together, hands resting on top of them.

“You read the script, right?”

“...Yes.”

“No dialogue. You know that?”

“...Yes.”

“Just relax.”

Jung Jaeseung jerked his chin, signaling them to begin.

The casting director rose from the judges’ table and walked into the studio.

She stood beside the folding chair, just outside the camera frame.

“Um... I’ll play the site foreman. Just respond naturally.”

The assistant director raised the slate.

During that brief moment, Park Songmin closed his eyes.

‘...Jeongeup.’

An asbestos shack beside a cattle shed, ten minutes on foot from the town center.

The one-way express bus he took at nineteen.

Two years at a logistics center, eight months making deliveries, then endless construction work after that.

He kept his right knee from straightening all the way.

His shoulder naturally dropped.

Following the trick he had practiced in front of the mirror, he relaxed his eyes and let his gaze pass beyond everything.

Clap—

With the sound of the slate, the camera’s red light came on.

And the man did nothing.

***

A convenience-store plastic bag rested on his knees.

The bread inside.

The man stared down at it.

He did not open the wrapper.

He did not touch it.

His empty eyes had no focus.

“...”

“...”

No sound came from the studio.

The script supervisor glanced down at her watch, then back up.

The assistant director looked toward the director.

Murmurs rose in the waiting room.

“...What’s he doing?”

“Did he forget the script?”

“There’s nothing to forget. It’s an improvised scene without a script.”

“Then... why is he just sitting there?”

Oh Junghan was thinking the same thing.

That was a disaster.

If you froze like that in front of the camera, you were finished.

Then the man’s hand moved.

He opened the bag.

And bit into the bread.

No, tore into it would have been more accurate.

There was no emotion in the motion of bringing it to his mouth.

He began chewing like an animal with nothing left but instinct.

Every bit of his attention was focused on forcing the dry bread down his throat.

No tears.

No sadness, no anger, no self-pity.

Nothing except the need to get this down if he wanted to stay alive.

The script supervisor sat frozen with the script open in front of her.

Her job was to note how far the acting deviated from the stage directions, but there was nothing to write.

[Taesik chews expired bread.]

If she transcribed exactly what was happening on screen, that was the sentence she would write.

Not a single extra word was needed.

‘...The stage direction just comes out like that?’

Then the casting director spoke.

“Hey, Kim Taesik.”

It was an ad-lib.

“Why didn’t you show up yesterday?”

His chewing slowed, then resumed.

He did not raise his head.

“...”

“I’m asking you.”

“...It was raining.”

His voice was cracked.

The end of the sentence faded away and was swallowed.

“There’s one spot open tomorrow. You want it?”

“...Yes.”

“Daily wage will be a little lower. That okay?”

“...”

For the first time, the man chewing the bread lifted his head slightly.

His gaze did not reach the other person’s face.

It stopped around her sternum.

“How much.”

“...”

A sudden chill ran through the casting director.

Her hands tingled because she had no idea what line to throw next.

“...One-thirty.”

“...Okay.”

The man lowered his head again.

And kept chewing.

The casting director mimed pulling a cigarette pack from her pocket.

“Want one?”

“...”

“You don’t smoke?”

“...I have one.”

His hand came out of his pocket.

There was nothing between his fingers.

And yet his fingers held themselves exactly like someone gripping a half-smoked cigarette they had put out to save for later.

Exactly as written on the character sheet Park Songmin had created.

The casting director looked down at that hand.

‘...What’s that now?’

With no prop at all, the shape of one hand revealed a habit belonging to the character.

No one had told him to do it, and it wasn’t in the script.

Behind the viewfinder, the cinematographer was watching something else.

The angle at which the character received the light kept changing within the frame.

Each time he chewed, his upper body leaned a little farther forward, making the shadow over his eyes sink deeper.

‘...I don’t even need to adjust the lighting.’

The actor was naturally refusing to present his face toward the light source.

Meanwhile, the waiting room had long since gone silent.

No one among the people who had been whispering earlier was speaking now.

The rookie actor held a water bottle, frozen halfway through twisting off the cap.

Something was happening on the screen that none of the eleven people who had gone through that room today had done.

...There was simply a man eating.

“Hey, we were talking about Park Songhu’s face earlier.”

“...Yeah.”

“Can you even see his face right now?”

No one answered.

A man called a face genius was sitting there, yet no one was looking at his face.

Everyone was watching what he was chewing.

A bread crumb fell.

It rolled from his knee to the floor.

The man’s finger moved down.

With one finger that did not fully straighten, he carefully dabbed at the crumb on the floor.

Then brought it to his mouth.

“...”

The casting director finally lost the ability to speak.

That... was nowhere in the script.

Of course it wasn’t. There was no way a three-line stage direction contained something like that.

But the instant that gesture appeared, the screen told them exactly how this man had survived until now.

Someone who could cry still had room to spare.

Someone who picked crumbs off the floor and ate them did not.

Emotion dried down to nothing.

“...”

This time, Jung Jaeseung’s mouth fell open.

***

The camera’s red light remained on.

And yet Jung Jaeseung did not call cut.

The assistant director held the slate and looked toward him.

The only sound the studio microphone captured was the buzzing fluorescent light.

‘...’

Park Songmin sat in the middle of that silence.

‘It’s over... why isn’t anyone saying anything?’

The half-open bread wrapper lay on his knees.

Bread crumbs still clung to his fingertips.

‘...Ah, shit.’

Cold sweat ran down his back.

‘Did I eat too greedily?’

No, Taesik was supposed to eat like that.

But why were those people making those faces?

No one was smiling, and no one was moving.

‘Did I screw up?’

What happened if he failed here?

What would his brother say?

What was he supposed to report to the CEO?

‘...Was picking the crumb off the floor too much?’

That might really have been too much.

Maybe they thought he was insane.

Especially after he had already walked in wearing these completely stretched-out clothes because of his stupid superstition.

‘I’m screwed...’

His eyes darted around.

With nowhere to look, they went from his knees to the floor, then back to his knees.

Those wavering pupils.

“...”

Jung Jaeseung watched them silently.

‘...He still hasn’t ended the performance.’

The director hadn’t called cut, so it wasn’t over.

That was why this person was still Taesik.

Tomorrow’s day rate had just been cut.

And the eyes left afterward were exactly those eyes.

Three years.

Every actor who had passed through this room during that time had understood Taesik.

They understood poverty, understood despair, understood how to show it.

But paradoxically, what Jung Jaeseung had failed to find all this time was precisely the opposite.

A face that understood nothing.

A face with no room to think about anything beyond surviving today.

“Director, aren’t you calling cut?”

“...”

“Director?”

No answer.

Then Jung Jaeseung pushed his chair back and stood.

The sound of its wheels scraping the floor made everyone in the studio look over.

Jung Jaeseung walked forward.

Park Songmin’s gaze followed his shoes upward.

‘...H-Huh? Why is he coming over here?’

Was this a good sign or a bad one?

Was he coming over personally to tell him to get out?

Were there directors who did that?

‘Could be. Hyung said that guy’s a pervert.’

Jung Jaeseung dragged over a folding metal chair and sat across from him.

Right in front of his face.

‘Why, why are you doing this? This is even scarier.’

Huh.

Up close, the director’s eyes were slightly red.

At that moment, Jung Jaeseung reached out.

He grabbed the hand covered in bread crumbs.

“U-Um...”

For the first time, Park Songmin’s real voice—not Taesik’s—slipped out in confusion.

His own voice.

Jung Jaeseung tightened his grip.

“Actor Park.”

“...”

“You passed.”

‘...I’m screwed!’

The Genius Actor Is Hiding Twins