Free Web Novel“Yoon Hwaran. Giselle in Acts 1 and 2 must feel completely different. Watch carefully.”
The Phantom demonstrated Giselle’s movements, and Hwaran tilted her head curiously.
Then he began dancing Giselle’s solo.
La— lala—
As the familiar theme from Giselle began to play and the Phantom took his position, the foreign man could hardly believe what he was seeing.
The screen looked blurred, as though covered by some kind of filter.
Even while staring directly at it, he felt as though his vision would slip out of focus if he looked away for even a second. So he concentrated even harder on the screen.
The Phantom’s Giselle looked lifeless, as though every trace of vitality had been drained away.
The man had seen countless performances of Giselle, but never one that felt so ghostlike.
There had to be a filter involved. But what kind?
Despite having worked on numerous film productions in his youth, he still couldn’t tell. What kind of filter could keep the image sharp while making it feel so hazy to the viewer?
And yet the eeriness was beautiful.
It felt like watching beautiful air.
The air moved, and emotions were woven into that beauty. Sorrow.
The lingering yearning of Giselle, unable to forget Albrecht even after death, drifted through the space around her.
Absorbed in the dance, the ballet phrase reached its conclusion.
As the music stopped, the Phantom’s presence became even more vivid.
“In this part, you need to express the profound desolation of second-act Giselle, so deep that even the sound of her movements disappears.”
Had those words come from an ordinary Giselle, they would have sounded ridiculous.
But after witnessing that performance, they resonated with complete conviction and utter despair.
‘How could a human being recreate something like that?’
For a moment, the audience found themselves wondering whether the Phantom was human at all.
Hwaran’s eyes gradually filled with awe and dependence. After encountering the pinnacle of ballet, her skills improved dramatically, and she secured the lead role in the ballet company’s next production, Giselle.
That day, she was overjoyed by the news.
“Don’t you get suffocated staying inside all the time? Let’s go for a walk together!”
She grabbed his wrist and pulled him along, drawing the first genuinely flustered expression from the Phantom.
It was the first truly human expression from someone who had seemed far above the clouds.
After hesitating at the theater entrance, he stepped onto the bare ground outside. Dirt stained his ballet shoes, but Hwaran paid it no mind as she continued pulling him forward.
For the first time, the one who had always led was being led by someone else.
They arrived beneath a cherry blossom tree at night, where thousands of petals shattered beneath the moonlight.
The audience held its breath before the overwhelming beauty of the scene.
Director Ki had deliberately left this scene untouched in editing because the raw footage already looked impossibly polished.
Standing alone in the middle of a ruined redevelopment district, the cherry tree resembled a dream—the final remnant of humanity within the Phantom’s desolate heart.
As petals drifted softly to the ground, emotions began to sprout.
An emotion he had long forgotten in his obsessive pursuit of “perfect ballet”:
The longing for an imperfect human being.
“Here. This is my favorite place. Isn’t it beautiful?”
It was Hwaran’s most beautiful scene.
The lingering innocence still within her, the freshness and pride of a newly risen prima ballerina, the trust and admiration shining in her eyes as she looked at the Phantom, the anticipation of achieving her dreams, and her greed—
All of those pure and murky emotions blended together into something startlingly beautiful.
The wind blew.
As petals swirled around the Phantom, he looked down at Hwaran.
And that wind, becoming a storm, struck directly at his heart.
Unable to endure the impact, he chose to lock away his emotions by removing his mask.
Whisk—
He tore it off.
Then he met her eyes with a challenging smile.
‘Can you still smile after seeing me now?’
But unexpectedly, Hwaran...
Met his gaze directly and smiled brightly without hesitation.
“Would you like to dance with me?”
At that moment, the Phantom was utterly defeated by her.
As they danced the pas de deux portraying Giselle and Albrecht falling in love, the Phantom’s gaze never once left Hwaran.
In contrast to the Phantom’s layered emotional portrayal, her simplicity carried its own charm.
Still, the man sighed in disappointment.
‘Why...?’
The scenes intensified.
Hwaran began earning recognition as a prima ballerina, and through repeated lessons with the Phantom, her ballet improved day by day.
The problem with relationships was that the more important someone became, the deeper the wounds they could inflict.
The careless remarks he made when she failed to meet his expectations, and the words he unconsciously spoke from habits formed through his long years in the theater, pierced Hwaran’s heart.
Though all people were supposedly equal before God, she now wished for God to look only at her.
Driven by jealousy and insecurity, she made a reckless decision.
“I’ve decided to start dating.”
“What, dating?”
“Yes. Soobin, the dancer playing Albrecht.”
The Phantom’s pupils trembled.
Countless ballerinas had passed through his hands, and many with immense potential had fallen apart because of love, relationships, or marriage. Those things had always been the enemies of talented ballerinas.
Whenever one of the dancers he painstakingly trained left him, he would feel empty for a while—but eventually he would simply find and nurture another talented ballerina. After all, ballet was the only thing he had.
But the anger he felt at Hwaran’s words wasn’t merely fear of losing a talented dancer.
So he too made a reckless move.
Deliberately.
He began teaching a new ballerina.
“...I saw you teaching Moon Yeonjeong.”
“Ah, yes. She’s talented.”
“...Why would you do that when I’m here?!”
“There are many talented new members this year. You should work hard too, before someone outshines you.”
“What are you talking about? That would never happen if you taught only me!!”
“Talented ballerinas will all be given equal opportunities.”
His cold words struck Hwaran like a blow.
Had it all been her misunderstanding? The feeling that he treated her differently during the time they spent together?
Anxiety consumed her.
Originally, she had simply been an ambitious ballerina desperate to become a prima ballerina.
After gaining a mentor and improving her skills, her heart had briefly settled. But that peace shattered in an instant.
The camera shook violently, then suddenly dropped with a heavy thud to focus on her feet.
And in the next instant...
(Thud—)
Her feet were severed.
The audience recoiled in their seats at the horrifying image.
Thud— Thud— Thud—
The sound of the axe, cut off at the beginning of the film, now pierced through the theater.
And this time, Hwaran’s severed feet danced nimbly across the stage, spraying blood everywhere—not in animation, but in reality.
Of course, it was all an illusion seen by Hwaran.
But the CG was executed so intricately that the horrifying image lingered in the audience’s minds.
The man couldn’t help thinking that.
Of course, the Phantom would have hidden his expression the moment she turned toward him—but even one accidental glimpse of that desperate look would have been enough.
Because she never saw it, the story inevitably raced toward catastrophe.
Her jealousy took root and spread.
Auditory hallucinations screamed around her while illusions swirled through her vision, leaving lingering afterimages.
Standing on the verge of her debut as a prima ballerina, the choice she made was...
To eliminate the source of her anxiety.
“Aaaahhh—!”
A lesser corps /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ de ballet member was replaced with ease.
Leaving the scene behind, Hwaran calmly walked onto the stage.
Eyes followed her, while from a hidden corner one would expect to find in an old theater, an intense gaze watched in silence.
The telephoto lens zoomed in on a blurry figure that lightly leaped into another patch of darkness.
The camera followed the Phantom into the shadows.
And on his hideous face, as he watched everything unfold with satisfied amusement...
His white teeth gleamed ominously.
The curtain rose on the ballet performance.
It was the debut stage of a cometlike rising star who had ascended in an instant to the position of prima ballerina.
Onstage, Giselle smiled, cried, went mad, and floated ethereally through the air.
The man was astonished by the depth of Hwaran’s performance, far beyond what her seemingly simple acting had suggested.
‘A Giselle like this could compete on the world stage...’
Then the performance ended.
After several curtain calls and graceful bows, the confident Hwaran cast a glance toward a shadowy corner of the audience.
The camera zoomed into what appeared to be an empty space.
Then the Phantom’s eyes emerged from the darkness.
He was staring directly back at her.
Snap—
The screen went black, and the ending credits rolled.
The audience sat blankly through the credits for a moment before people slowly began rising from their seats one after another.
Clap clap clap clap clap clap—
It was a standing ovation.
At film festivals, applause for an exceptional film could continue for a very, very long time.
True to his emotional French temperament, the man stood and clapped until his palms stung.
He had booked his next screening only ten minutes later because he wanted to watch as many films as possible during his vacation, but he abandoned those plans.
This film had a GV (Guest Visit) session afterward, and now he was too curious to leave.
“The GV will now begin.”
The person who appeared to be a Busan Film Festival programmer opened the session, and two people seated in the front row made their way toward the stage.
One of them was the actor who played the Phantom. The man felt a surge of excitement, as though he were meeting a character he never believed could truly exist.
‘The other must be... the director.’
“I’m Ki Dohan, the director of Ballerina High. It’s an honor to be here at the Busan International Film Festival. The title Ballerina High doesn’t only refer to the image of a ballerina soaring upward. The word ‘high’ can also describe the state of being intoxicated by drugs.
In this film, Hwaran exists in a state of high, intoxicated by the illusion of the Phantom, which elevates her into that state. Although drugs are illegal in Korea, I hope audiences will receive this film as something akin to a drug.”
Yoomyeong looked at Ki Dohan with newfound admiration.
Director Ki knew the film industry well, but hearing him speak so smoothly and impressively felt completely different from his usual self.
Then Yoomyeong took the microphone.
“I’m Shin Yoomyeong, the actor who played the Phantom in Ballerina High. This film was my debut project, and it’s a work I truly enjoyed and came to love. Since I was completely new to ballet, it was very challenging, but it also became an incredibly valuable experience for me as an actor because I had the chance to encounter such a magnificent art form. I’m deeply grateful to the director for trusting me with the role of the Phantom.” freewebnovёl.ƈom
As the interpreter translated their introductions, the foreign man was stunned once again.
‘What? That actor wasn’t originally a ballet dancer? And this was his acting debut? Impossible...’
“We’ll now begin a twenty-minute Q&A session. If anyone in the audience has questions about the film, please raise your hand.”
The moment he heard that, the man eagerly shot his hand into the air, waving it back and forth.
Spotting the blond, blue-eyed foreigner raising his hand, the programmer cheerfully pointed him out.
“Let’s get a microphone to that gentleman.”
A staff member hurried over and handed him the microphone.
After carefully considering which of his many questions to ask first, he decided to start with the one thing that disappointed him the most.
“I enjoyed the film very much, but there is one thing I’m dissatisfied with.”
The audience tensed at his blunt tone.
“...Why on earth didn’t you wait for an invitation from the Cannes Film Festival?”
Ballon Farouze.
He was the senior programmer of the Cannes Film Festival, one of the three largest film festivals in the world.
