NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 115: Why are you here?
Chapter 115 <Why are you here?>
After seeing a few more applicants, Yoo Yeon Seo took a break and went outside. There were still quite a lot of people waiting for their audition.
Yoo Yeon Seo was used to the attention he received from them, but he turned his head when he heard a voice from behind.
“Yeon Seo.”
“Min-ah. You haven’t left yet?”
“No. I wanted to say goodbye.”
I wonder when he’ll come out… Well, this is perfect timing.
“Can I ask you one thing? What do you think about when you act?”
“Well… I try to become the role I’m playing as much as possible at that moment.”
“Is it working well for you?”
“Not really. I feel like I’ve become the character only… half of the time?”
“Then what do you think about for the other half?”
“Nothing, really.”
Hong Min-ah said as if it was obvious. Yoo Yeon Seo was good at immersing himself in his roles, but he also had other thoughts during his acting. Rather than thinking as the character he was playing, he mostly had mundane thoughts.
That’s why he could snap out of his immersion as soon as he heard the director’s cut sign. It was an advantage to have a clear on and off switch, but it also felt like he wasn’t doing a perfect job.
[Maybe I should focus on the role itself without any other thoughts sometimes.]
That’s what Cheon director advised me too…
“I don’t think I’m like that…”
“Really? Do you ever think things like, I should go this way here, or maybe I should flip my hair around here?”
“Um… sometimes?”
Hong Min-ah looked at Yoo Yeon Seo with curiosity.
“It might be different for each person, but… wow, I would lose my immersion right away if I did that. You can calculate and act that well? That’s talent.”
“Then if you act like Min-ah, you don’t break your immersion easily, right?”
“It’s a bit hard, yeah. It took me a few days to get out of Park Su-ah’s role.”
“Hmm…”
Is that how most actors are? Should I ask all the actors I know? Yoo Yeon Seo pondered for a moment.
“Hey… is that guy Yeon Seo’s secretary? I saw him before, but he’s really tall.”
When he followed Hong Min-ah’s gaze, he saw a middle-aged man talking with Im Seung-hyun. He exchanged a brief farewell with Hong Min-ah and approached them.
“Hello, Yeon Seo young master.”
“Did grandmother send you?”
“Yes.”
The middle-aged man with white hair here and there bowed politely. The eyes of the people nearby were drawn to them.
“Let’s go over there for now.”
Following Im Seung-hyun’s guidance, they sat down at a cafe on the first floor of the building.
“My name is Park Jung-ho.”
“Yoo Yeon Seo.”
Yoo Yeon Seo put Park Jung-ho’s business card, which had only black letters on a white background, in his pocket and glared at the people taking pictures nearby.
“Did grandmother say anything to you?”
“She told me to assist you as much as possible.”
“Until when?”
“Until you are satisfied, young master.”
“Are you satisfied, Mr. Park?”
He was startled at first when he was suddenly told to go and help his grandson, but the rumors surrounding Yoo Yeon Seo had already faded a lot.
“Yes, I’m fine.”
He was more uncomfortable when he was with Park Geum-ju. She had been in a very bad mood lately, and the attendants had to be careful around her.
“Did she say anything else?”
“She said not to doubt, not to talk back, and just do what you tell me to do.”
“Did she also tell you not to report anything I ask you to do?”
“Yes.”
Was it because she didn’t want to know anymore, or because she felt guilty and wanted to support him fully? Anyway, as long as there was progress in the investigation, it didn’t matter.
“I need a list of all the people who were at grandfather’s mansion on May 12th, 1999. If possible, I also need information that can identify them.”
“Yes. I’ll look into it.”
It was a long time ago, and he didn’t know if there were any records left because of personal information protection, but Park Jung-ho answered without changing his expression. His job was to make the impossible possible.
“Do you remember what happened that day?”
“I visited briefly for some art museum related work.”
“You remember well.”
“How can I forget?”
The incident happened after he left the mansion… Yoo Yeon Seo smiled bitterly at the answer that had a lot of meaning.
“Ah, and one more thing…”
After a brief silence, Yoo Yeon Seo opened his mouth again.
“Can you investigate how our relatives were doing around that time?”
“What do you mean?”
“Things like whether they had any complicated business entanglements, or whether they had any financial difficulties.”
If Yoo Eunho and Baek Seojun’s suspicions were true, there must have been some cause. Even a small clue would be good.
“I understand. I will deliver the results of the investigation through Secretary Lim.”
“I want to see the simple personal details of the servants that day as soon as possible.”
“That should take about two days. I will contact you in advance if there are any changes.”
“There is one most important thing.”
Yoo Yeon Seo lowered her voice.
“You must keep it a secret that I ordered an investigation related to this incident from the other family members. Don’t let them find out.”
“Yes, I understand.
Don’t step on the tail… It’s hard. That’s what Park Jeongho thought as he got up from his seat and bowed out. He looked back for a moment and saw Yoo Yeon Seo’s back as she returned to the audition hall.
‘It seemed like something had happened…’
Park Geumju guessed that his recent bad mood had something to do with Yoo Yeon Seo. He answered the ringing phone.
“Yes, Director.”
(Did you meet him?)
“Yes, I just came out after seeing him.”
(How does he look now?)
“He was more polite than I expected. I think I can get the information he requested without much difficulty.”
Park Geumju didn’t answer. Did he not like the answer… Park Jeongho hastily added.
“He doesn’t look well. He coughs a lot and scratches his ears often…”
(…I see. I got it.)
Park Geumju swallowed hard at the answer that he scratched his ears often, but Park Jeongho pretended not to notice and hung up the phone.
Come to think of it, Park Geumju seemed to care a lot about his grandson’s well-being…
‘He didn’t ask about the director.’
He must not be very curious about him… What happened? He wondered for a moment, but soon put the thought away. He had to move quickly to handle the task that Yoo Yeon Seo gave him.
***
(You don’t think about anything?)
“You too? Why?”
(If you ask me why, I don’t have anything to say in particular…)
Just after the recording ended and he was going home, Jinsuho received a sudden question call from Yoo Yeon Seo. What do you think when you act… It was a topic that he didn’t have much doubt about either.
“Do you do method acting or something?”
(I’m not the type to immerse myself in the character so extremely, but… I guess it’s similar.)
“Really?”
(But why do you ask?)
“I don’t know.”
Jinsuho chuckled. Why, what, why.
(Are you curious about that now? How have you been acting until now?)
“Just… I did. Sometimes I think about other things.”
(Heh… You understood the character, right?)
“I understand. I analyze everything before the reading. But if you ask me if the character was the center, I don’t think so.”
Jinsuho, who vaguely answered that he would understand, asked again.
(Then how much was it when you acted as Chunbaek? Based on 100%.)
“Um… Chunbaek was about 70% and I was about 20%?”
And Kang Jinhoo was about 10%? Anyway, it wasn’t 100% immersion. Since everyone has a different way, there was nothing to say about Jinsuho.
(You’re not the type to not immerse yourself… Then you must get out of the character quickly, right?)
“It just happens, you know?”
(I want to learn that.)
Jinsuho briefly told his story. At that time, he was filming as a villain and when someone said something bad to him, he unknowingly felt a surge of emotion.
It was said that Jinsuho, who was famous for his good personality, was so immersed in his role that he was affected by it in his daily life.
“I never had that.”
(If that’s your acting style, I don’t think you need to change it. It’s not like you can’t act.)
“Um… I just thought of something I wanted to do.”
How do you immerse yourself 100%? He was wondering about that when he frowned at Jinsuho’s words.
(But you said you were hospitalized. Is it because of that?)
“No, why are you so nosy? It was nothing. I’m hanging up.”
(Wait…)
He didn’t care what Jinsuho was saying. He might be a little annoyed, but he would thank him for worrying later and calm down.
He had something more important to do.
‘Who is Yoo Yeon Seo?’
The first thing he did when he received the script was to analyze the character.
He started to analyze the original body based on the memories he had synchronized and what he had heard from the people around him.
He had a trashy reputation as an adult, but he was kind and considerate as a child. His innate nature remained, so he empathized deeply with something he didn’t even do wrong and ended up hearing hallucinations.
‘He was quite attached to Lee Hee-seo. I still don’t understand this…’
He was barely able to cope with the original body’s memories that he had synchronized, but he would have been completely unable to understand them before.
‘And the guilt of letting the culprit go.’
He could understand this a little. He had always felt guilty for the people he couldn’t save.
As he searched for the common points between Yoo Yeon Seo and Kang Jin-hoo, he leaned his body against the backrest, exhausted.
‘This is endless.’
Then, what if he erased Kang Jin-hoo? He closed his eyes and concentrated. He was used to erasing himself.
“Ugh!”
As he was focusing, he suddenly bent his upper body and vomited blood. He felt dizzy from vomiting a lot.
‘Beta.’
<You don’t have to try so hard. You’ll be fine once the memory synchronization reaches 100%.>
He wiped the blood on his mouth with his sleeve. He couldn’t bear the emotions that came rushing like a tidal wave when he tried to erase Kang Jin-hoo and regained his senses late. It was the same feeling he had felt in the situation that Beta had warned him about a few days ago.
‘I can’t use this method.’
Should he just live like this? Everyone who knew him already found out anyway.
“Yeon Seo.”
“Huh?”
Just like now.
He was startled to see Yoo Eun-ho standing at the entrance of the living room, looking lost, but he spoke calmly.
“Why are you here?”
“You collapsed like that and you think I wouldn’t come?”
“What if you just come in?”
“I called you. You didn’t answer, so I thought something happened to you like before… Sigh…”
He looked at his phone screen and saw three missed calls. Yoo Eun-ho sighed deeply and approached his brother. He grabbed a tissue and pressed it to Yoo Yeon Seo’s mouth. The floor was covered with blood, which was creepy.
“Do you think it makes sense that the test results are clean when you’re this serious?”
“I know, right?”
Yoo Eun-ho pushed his hand harder as he saw his brother talking about his own problem as if it was someone else’s. Yoo Yeon Seo protested softly that it hurt.
“What’s that bag for? Are you going to live here?”
“For a while. There are plenty of empty rooms, right?”
“No, how can you do this without my permission…”
“Can you let me wipe the blood first?”
Yoo Yeon Seo grumbled as he wiped the blood on his body. Yoo Eun-ho frowned at the sight. Should he take him to the hospital again?
“You’re like this and there’s no one at home. It’s unsafe. Or call your secretary or manager and live with them.”
“No, that’s too much.”
He preferred his family over strangers. Besides, they were too eager to get his attention these days, which was annoying.
“When did this start?”
“Not long ago.”
“It doesn’t seem like it’s not long ago.”
Yoo Yeon Seo scowled as Yoo Eun-ho tried to catch his tail.
“The test results are clean. I’m not sick, okay?”
“Hey, how can you say you’re not sick when you’re this red?”
“Geez, why do you keep picking on me!”
The two brothers argued for a while. And that night, he was able to sleep peacefully without any hallucinations or illusions.