Free Web Novel“His house?”
As if trying to make up for the past few days, Miho spoke up.
“Rookie actor, what do you think? Do you have any ideas about what I should do?”
“Um... I can see where you’re coming from, but I don’t have a solution yet. I’ll think about it, but do you mind if I go to the restroom for a minute?”
“Oh, sure. Go ahead.”
Yoomyeong left the room and headed to the bathroom.
The restroom, designed as a private space, had a lock on the door.
As he closed the door and turned toward the mirror, he saw a fluffy silver furball sitting on the shelf: Miho.
“What do you mean, go to his house?”
{That friend’s acting energy flows more strongly through one side of his body.}
“Really? Is it because he’s been overusing a particular emotion?”
{It looks like he’s been practicing spreading his energy evenly instead of trying to correct it. There are clear signs of effort. It should have been fixed by now.}
“But?”
{The fact that it keeps reverting suggests there’s a mechanism causing it. I suspect there’s something about where he lives.}
The casually dropped hints carried significant meaning.
They couldn’t be ignored.
When it came to acting, Miho was more perceptive than anyone else. Hadn’t the spirit fox’s insights and advice proven effective every time Yoomyeong faced a dilemma?
“How can you be sure there’s something wrong with where he lives?”
{Matters outside of acting are not my area of expertise... I suppose we’ll only know for certain if we visit his house.}
“Alright, I understand. Thanks.”
Yoomyeong contacted Ho-chul.
“Hochul, I don’t think I’ll be able to come home tonight.”
{Oh? Hyung, is something wrong?}
“I’m practicing acting with Senior Actor Yoon Hansung, and we might have a few drinks at his place after we finish.”
{Actor Yoon Hansung? Wow.}
“Yeah, so don’t worry if you can’t reach me.”
{Sure. If anything comes up, no matter how small, please let me know.}
“Alright.”
Then he returned to the practice room where Hansung was.
“Senior, please tell me if anything comes to mind while we practice together.”
“Sure, please do the same.”
They continued practicing.
They analyzed various monologues and worked together on developing the characters’ tones and habits.
Acting out the same character they had chosen together and observing the subtle differences in each other’s styles proved to be a useful exercise.
After they finished practicing that day, Yoomyeong made a request to Hansung.
“Senior, can you buy me a drink?”
“Well... where do you live, Senior? Can I come over?”
“Ah... my place is a bit far, and I don’t usually bring people over. How about the place we went to last time?”
Once again, Hansung avoided the question.
Was there a reason he didn’t want to show his house to others? ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom
Yoomyeong couldn’t insist on going if Hansung was against it. There was only one other strategy left that might work.
They arrived at the same bar as last time. Against the backdrop of a sprawling night view, steamed clams and soju sat before them.
“Are you good at drinking, Actor Shin?”
“Well... I’m not sure.” frёeωebɳovel.com
He couldn’t remember how much he used to drink when he was twenty-five in his previous life.
Yoomyeong used to drink heavily. However, he had refrained from drinking in this life.
The shock of being diagnosed with liver cancer was one reason, but this life also hadn’t been so suffocating that he needed to drown his sorrows in alcohol.
While acting came with pressure, it was both stressful and exhilarating for him.
Clink!
Their soju glasses clinked together.
Yoomyeong intended to get drunk tonight. Hoping Hansung would take him home if he got drunk was the last strategy he had left to try.
As he downed a glass, he quickly began to feel the effects of the alcohol. Concerned, Hansung spoke up.
“Take it slow. It seems you’re not very good with alcohol.”
“No, it’s not that.”
“Last time we drank together, you barely touched your drink.”
Hansung filled Yoomyeong’s glass halfway and poured himself a full one.
“Drink slowly and pace yourself. Don’t worry about keeping up with me.”
“Haha, understood, Senior.”
Talking with Hansung was comfortable. They weren’t the type to force conversation, so silences occasionally fell between them, but they were never awkward. They would quietly reflect for a while before resuming their conversation again.
“You suddenly asked me out for drinks... Is there something you’re worried about?”
“Yes.”
In truth, it was more concern for Hansung than for himself.
Yoomyeong changed the subject.
“What do you think Director Son meant when he said he saw something in me?”
“Hmm... I saw it too. After watching Actor Shin back then, I understood what the director meant.”
“What was it?”
“Your acting is really impressive, Actor Shin. It’s like you’re playing with the audience’s focus. Watching you act feels like ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) being unable to take your eyes off a spider weaving a geometric web... or like watching magic. There’s something captivating about it.”
“I see.”
Hansung took another sip of his drink.
“Yeah. But at that moment, there was also a profound presence about you, even when you were just standing there silently. A few actors at the very top have that. They exude an aura without doing anything.”
“Yes, there are people like that.”
Yoomyeong recalled a certain theater actor.
In his previous life, he had attended a theater festival in his hometown.
The actor in question had participated in the one-act play competition and possessed the ability to captivate thousands of people in an open-air theater with nothing more than his footsteps across the stage, let alone when he delivered his lines.
The very air had felt different then.
If that actor hadn’t tragically died young, he would undoubtedly have risen to the top of the acting world.
“I can do it too, right?”
“That sounds uncharacteristically weak coming from you. Of course you’ll do well. Come on, cheers. Ah, you don’t have to drink if you don’t want to.”
Despite Hansung’s attempt to stop him, Yoomyeong took another sip.
The alcohol hit him sharply.
“Ah, this guy’s drunk. What should I do?”
Yoomyeong was the type to fall asleep when he got drunk.
“I should contact his manager. Where’s his phone?”
Yoomyeong had intentionally let his phone battery die after deciding to get drunk. Now it was completely dead.
“Actor Shin. Shin Yoomyeong. Can you tell me your home address?”
“I’m sleepy...”
Hansung tried to support Yoomyeong’s slumping shoulders, but they drooped again immediately. It seemed Yoomyeong was the type who completely lost his senses when drunk. Hansung wasn’t entirely sober himself, either. He had drunk a lot in a short period of time, especially while they were having serious conversations. He felt exhausted enough that he wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep.
Hansung picked up his phone.
RRR
“Myeong-Gyeong.”
{Yes, hyung. Where are you? Do you want me to come pick you up?}
“Yeah, but Actor Shin is here too. He’s completely passed out and won’t wake up.”
{Uh... can’t you contact his manager?}
“His phone is off.”
{What should we do, then? Should I book a hotel?}
“Hmm... it wouldn’t be good if he were seen at a hotel and misunderstood, especially since he’s pretty popular these days. I’m thinking of taking him to my place so he can sleep.”
Hansung’s road manager, Myeong-Gyeong, was slightly surprised by his words.
Hansung usually disliked having people over at his house. Even Myeong-Gyeong normally waited outside whenever he came to pick him up for schedules.
Looks like they’re pretty close...
{Alright, hyung. I’ll head over now.}
“Thank you.”
About an hour later, Yoomyeong was in Gwacheon.
The door of a quiet two-story house at the foot of Gwanaksan Mountain opened, and after smoothly parking the car in the garage, Myeong-Gyeong disappeared. Supporting Yoomyeong with one arm, Hansung retrieved his keys with the other and opened the front door with a creak.
The house was silent.
The porch light blinked several times, as though signaling that the bulb had gone bad, before flickering out completely. Hansung supported Yoomyeong with one hand while removing his shoes with the other, then guided him into the house.
“Ah...”
Sensing the unfamiliarity of the space, Yoomyeong opened his eyes.
He sobered up instantly at the sight before him.
A soft mat was spread across the living room floor. Colorful toys lay scattered around, their colors faded from years of use.
Inside the picture frames on the shelf were photographs, every one of them featuring the same cute, smiling face — a face and smile that resembled Hansung’s.
Bo-eun.
The name of Hansung’s young daughter, no longer in this world, echoed through his mind. He had heard it only once at the Oedipus Workshop, yet remembered it instantly because of the sorrow attached to it.
Tears welled up in Yoomyeong’s eyes, but he tried to hold them back, blinking hard. Hansung poured him a glass of water and handed it over.
“Ah, you’re awake? You wouldn’t wake up, so I brought you to my place.”
Yoomyeong couldn’t hold back his tears at Hansung’s gentle expression.
At the dining table where they sat facing each other, two glasses of whiskey had been set down.
Hansung, initially puzzled by Yoomyeong’s sudden tears, seemed to realize the reason after following his gaze.
It was a landscape of sorrow far too familiar to him.
Hansung’s considerate expression only caused Yoomyeong to cry harder, and Hansung’s own eyes seemed to redden as well.
“It’s not that I can’t bear to clean it up, nor that I deliberately surround myself with sadness...”
“It’s just... it’s hard for me to clear it away with my own hands. And after seeing it for so long, it doesn’t affect me anymore.”
But that couldn’t possibly be true.
“How long has it been?”
“Since Bo-eun passed away? It’s been seven years now. I started living alone about six years ago...”
Living alongside sorrow either divided it or multiplied it.
It seemed Hansung and his wife had belonged to the latter kind.
Hansung and Yoomyeong silently drank together. It was the kind of night that called for alcohol. Hansung’s eyes gradually darkened as he spoke about himself for the first time.
“Bo-eun was so beautiful.”
“Yes. She looked a lot like you, Senior.”
“She was a daddy’s girl. She even said ‘Dad’ before ‘Mom.’ The first word she ever spoke was while I was on TV. She said ‘Dad-da.’ My wife called it babbling, but I heard her clearly.”
“You must have been very happy.”
The corners of Hansung’s lips lifted briefly into a faint smile.
“I grew up without parents.”
Yoomyeong, who already knew about Hansung’s past from the media, quietly nodded.
“The thing that scared me most was having a child. I didn’t know what a father was supposed to be like, so I had to learn everything step by step to become a good dad.”
Unlike acting, this was real life.
“I had to become the best father possible for Bo-eun, but there was no way to practice for it. I was scared because I didn’t know anything about raising a child. What if I hurt her because I didn’t know how?”
His voice, weighed down by alcohol, carried a deep sadness.
The genuine grief revealed by the actor known for portraying sorrow so convincingly that he had earned the title The King of Tragic Acting was painful to witness.
Yoomyeong listened quietly, allowing Hansung to voice the pain that seemed inseparable from him.
Then, after a while, Yoomyeong cautiously offered a suggestion.
“Senior, I think I might know the solution to the acting block you’re struggling with right now.”
“Oh? What is it?”
True to his instincts as an actor, the drowsiness brought on by alcohol immediately vanished from Hansung’s eyes.
He looked at Yoomyeong expectantly, and Yoomyeong struggled to continue.
He knew the answer without needing confirmation from Miho.
“Have you considered moving?”
Hansung tilted his head in confusion.
“Moving? You mean this house is affecting me? I don’t think so...”
After reacting defensively at first, Hansung chose to answer honestly when he saw Yoomyeong’s silent gaze.
“The truth is... yeah, I’ve thought about it.”
“But I feel guilty toward Bo-eun. The Children’s Grand Park was nearby, and she loved being able to ride her bicycle in the yard.”
The sorrow seemed to swell instantly within the space filled with so many memories.
The gaps Hansung painstakingly patched up during acting practice would,
like a poorly built dam under pressure, burst open again every time he returned home.
“I’m not saying you should forget those memories. But wounds need to heal, even if scars remain... I think this place keeps reopening the wound.”
“Wouldn’t Bo-eun be sad if she thought I was forgetting her?”
Even though Hansung understood it intellectually, accepting it emotionally was another matter entirely.
“I’m sorry for being presumptuous, but if you were suffering somewhere and Bo-eun spent seven years drowning in sorrow because she couldn’t forget you and kept clinging to those memories... would that really make you happy?”
Yoomyeong knew it might be difficult to hear, but someone trapped in the inertia of grief needed to hear those words.
As expected, Hansung’s face briefly twisted before slowly relaxing again as he let out a sigh.
“You’re right... that wouldn’t be right. But you wouldn’t understand the heart of a parent, Actor Shin.”
“I’m sorry.”
“But as an actor, your advice isn’t wrong. I asked for your opinion, after all. Thank you for being willing to talk about something so difficult.”
Feeling sympathy for Hansung, Yoomyeong came up with an idea.
“Um... hyung.”
“Yes?”
Hansung blinked at the sudden change in address.
“How about staying at my place for about a week? We could make it an acting camp.”
