"Good work, everyone."
Somehow or other, the shoot was over.
The sudden, unexpected sight of Mo Ji-gyeong's bald spot had caught everyone off guard, leaving the atmosphere heavy and chilly throughout the entire filming. It hadn't been a particularly difficult shoot, but the fatigue was considerable. Because of that, it was only after hearing that filming was done that relief finally set in.
"Yes…"
Mo Ji-gyeong, who had quickly fixed his hair and returned, behaved quite docilely for the rest of the shoot. Whether because of the shock, he didn't joke or laugh, nor did he particularly pick a fight with Hyun-mo.
And no wonder—he had shown exactly the side of himself he least wanted to reveal to the advertisers and production crew. He must have been absolutely beside himself.
His manager, who had always ridden on his coattails and stirred up trouble, stood there pale-faced, at a complete loss. He'd probably be thinking of handing in the resignation letter he always kept tucked in his chest, dreading the earful he'd get all the way back. It was no secret in the industry that Mo Ji-gyeong went through managers like clockwork.
'Of course, this isn't the end.'
Hyun-mo internally cheered, while keeping his face as expressionless as possible.
'I have no intention of letting you off this quietly.'
Hyun-mo shaped his eyebrows into a downward arc and approached Mo Ji-gyeong.
"I'm so sorry…"
On the surface, he apologized first.
"Anyway, it wasn't on purpose. It really wasn't… but the hair loss…"
He whispered in a low voice, lightly scratching at Mo Ji-gyeong's insides one last time.
"Just go. Forget it."
Mo Ji-gyeong bit back his fury and suppressed his anger.
'Oh? He's holding it in?'
Mo Ji-gyeong had grown up a lot. The brashness he'd had since his rookie days was nowhere to be seen—after all these years, he seemed to be holding his anger in pretty well. But letting him off like this felt like a waste.
"How about… just hit me. I'd rather you did."
Passive-aggressive attack, incoming.
"You…! Just go, I said."
Judging by the way he was clenching his jaw, it seemed he was reaching his limit.
In that case, let me provoke him a little more.
"No, I—I was the bad one… It's all my fault… Even Mo Ji-gyeong's hair loss is… my fault…"
Hyun-mo looked at Mo Ji-gyeong with an earnest expression, then subtly curled the corner of his mouth.
"You little bastard!"
Mo Ji-gyeong exploded. He grabbed Hyun-mo by the collar and yanked him up, and the staff nearby rushed over to restrain him.
'You're done in this advertising world now, you bastard.'
Just look at the faces of those advertisers over there.
And the stiff expressions of the company's PR team members who had watched the whole scene unfold.
Even though he was being shaken around by the collar, Hyun-mo was cheering inwardly.
Losing this one ad deal wasn't a huge loss—but that was just the beginning. Mo Ji-gyeong would start losing one commercial after another from now on. Word travels fast in this industry.
By then, the staff had swarmed over and finally managed to separate Mo Ji-gyeong and Hyun-mo.
His neck area was red and swollen, but Hyun-mo was still rejoicing on the inside.
'And yet, this uneasy feeling…'
It was probably because of the script lines that had suddenly come to him in the middle of the shoot—lines between Manager Heo and Choi Sung-ae.
'Manager Heo seemed to be telling Mom my phone password and trying to check my assets.'
No way—had Manager Heo actually fallen for Choi Sung-ae's manipulation?
If those lines really reflected what was happening in reality, then all the assets Hyun-mo had saved up so far were about to fall straight into his mother Choi Sung-ae's hands.
'Then, even if I wake up again, I'll be left with nothing…'
Money that went into Choi Sung-ae's hands never lasted—it would just dissolve into thin air.
Apart from the entertainment business that supported Koo Hyun-mo, she had started one absurd venture after another and blown billions. Calling it pouring water into a bottomless pit would be an understatement.
The assets he had barely managed to protect thanks to Oh Jung-seop's advice were now on the verge of vanishing in vain.
'No way…'
But no matter how he thought about it, it was strange that he had suddenly heard their voices out of nowhere.
It was also hard to believe that Manager Heo had joined hands with Choi Sung-ae and tried to unlock Hyun-mo's phone.
'But what if that conversation is actually happening right now?'
A chilling suspicion brushed past the back of his mind, and cold sweat trickled down his spine. No matter how hard he tried to think positively, that nagging, unsettled feeling just wouldn't go away.
"Are you okay?"
Director Kim Woo-yong approached with a worried look on his face.
"Yes, I'm fine. You seem pretty shaken up too, Director…"
"Oh, right… This is my first time dealing with something like this…"
Kim Woo-yong, who had come to comfort Hyun-mo but ended up being comforted instead, scratched the back of his head.
"I won't let this leak outside, so don't worry."
"Ah, this is…"
At Hyun-mo's words, the director's face finally relaxed—and then, out of nowhere, came an embarrassing flood of praise.
"Today's Hair Follicle No. 23. How should I put it… your hair follicle acting was truly the best."
"Excuse me?"
His hair follicle acting was the best—what was that even supposed to mean?
"You're too kind. I just… it was all thanks to everyone's help…"
"No, no, no! You all saw it, right? He nailed that hair follicle performance! Huh? You saw it too, didn't you, cinematographer? Don't you agree?"
Director Kim didn't stop at praise—he started calling over people passing by and asking for their agreement.
"No… uh… Director… please… don't do that."
He couldn't exactly cover the director's mouth.
"Yeah, it was good. That… hair follicle acting."
"Excuse me?"
"I liked it too! The hair follicle acting."
"Oh, no…"
"I mean it. Being able to convey emotion even while wearing that costume—that's really not easy. For real."
Sincere or not, this was embarrassing, so could they please just be quiet? He wanted to crawl into a hole right then and there. He hadn't bounced around in that hair follicle costume just to receive such overwhelming praise and draw this much attention.
"Whoa—good work today!"
"You were the best hair follicle."
Applause broke out among the staff members surrounding Hyun-mo.
"…"
At this point, it felt like they were just teasing him.
"Th-thank you…"
Hyun-mo had no choice but to reply with nothing more than words of gratitude and a promise to work hard.
"Good work today!"
Fortunately, the strange praise session—embarrassing for both the giver and the receiver—finally came to an end.
If he wrapped things up well here, who knew—maybe Director Kim Woo-yong would remember him and call him in for his next project.
"Director, thank you for your kind words. If you ever have the chance, please do call me for your work."
"Sure."
Of course, he did get a "Sure" in reply, but Director Kim didn't ask for his phone number or anything. He didn't even ask for Hyun-mo's name.
It was disappointing, but he had no choice but to turn away with a bitter taste in his mouth.
***
"Hyun-mo. You finished earlier than we thought."
The big guys were leisurely playing badminton in the parking lot.
He'd grown somewhat fond of them—seeing them put his mind at ease.
"By the way, what the hell got Mo Ji-gyeong so pissed? His car just went screeching out of there with a full-on drift!"
"There was… an incident."
If they found out what had happened inside, these big guys would be absolutely livid. For some reason, that thought made him feel a little warmed inside.
'Has anyone ever thought of me that way…'
He thought of his mother, who used to fret nervously at the mere mention of him being sick, afraid that it would derail a shoot.
Even when his fever was burning over 40 degrees, she'd make him get an IV and drag him to film that day anyway.
He was forced into schedules that were practically child abuse, and yet he wasn't allowed to be sick. Even if he was, telling his mother would only bring scolding for not taking better care of himself—so he had to endure it all alone.
'When I think about it that way, I'm envious of Shin Hyun-mo.'
Though Shin Hyun-mo had no family, no agency, and no money, he had brothers who were like family, a place to stay for free, and… Oh Jung-seop too. It was as good as having everything.
Koo Hyun-mo had money, sure—but that money was… at this very moment, Choi Sung-ae was probably doing everything she could to take it from him.
"I think I need to go to… the funeral home."
Hyun-mo carefully brought it up.
Oh Jung-seop's funeral would still be in progress, so he figured that might be his chance to slip into Koo Hyun-mo's hospital room.
"Oh, yeah, we gotta go. We're carrying hyung-nim's coffin tomorrow at dawn. The sister-in-law called."
"Ah… but, hyung-nim, what's that I heard about the sister-in-law going after the production team of <Nakhwa>?"
"Oh, wow, you heard about that too."
"She called them murderers…"
"Ah… yeah. See, for hyung-nim, <Nakhwa> was practically a death sentence waiting to happen. He was the type who took a long time to get into character and an even longer time to come back out, so the sister-in-law was completely against it from the start."
<Nakhwa> was a film about the regrets of a man who had lived a false life. He'd lived a life others envied, but in truth, it was nothing but an empty shell. In the end, the protagonist, "Jung-seop," realizes that despite having thought he had everything, no one is by his side—and he takes his own life, lost in loneliness and futility.
Probably because of that ending.
Among method actors, there are occasional cases where some become so consumed by their roles that they meet unfortunate ends.
Still, it was a shame.
The movie was doing so well.
<Nakhwa>, Oh Jung-seop's final work, had failed at the box office upon its initial release, but later received several awards at international film festivals and was reevaluated. The film, which had been pulled from theaters after just three days, was re-released and was still playing, gradually approaching its break-even point.
'Now that it's become Oh Jung-seop's posthumous work, it'll probably do even better.'
Hyun-mo went straight to the theater on the day <Nakhwa> was released. He went with his face completely covered.
As much as he'd found Oh Jung-seop insufferable, he was burning with curiosity to see his acting—he had to check it for himself. He'd planned to see with his own eyes just how good this man's acting was, to nitpick every flaw and find fault with all the things he'd said to him.
'Oh Jung-seop's acting was brilliant.'
It was a performance that only someone like Oh Jung-seop could pull off — a side of him Hyun-mo had never seen before.
But in the end, that fact only left him with a heavy heart when he returned.
"So… by any chance, was the way he died the same as his character's?"
"…Dunno. Why're you asking something like that. Anyway, apparently the screenwriter wrote the role with Jung-seop hyung-nim specifically in mind. And then the director and PD went and begged him for days on end to take the part."
After hearing this conversation, Hyun-mo could vaguely understand why Choi Young-sil had been so furious, blaming the production team.
Once her husband took on a role, he would do method acting that aligned completely with the character—so she must have been horrified when she read the script.
"But couldn't he just not take it?"
"The problem was the script."
The script?
"He happened to see the script the production team had left behind, and it just clicked with him. He got greedy for it. When a story's that compelling… he must've thought, 'I could make this my final work.'"
"…"
So the script was the root cause.
If the script hadn't been right, he wouldn't have given it a second thought, no matter how much they begged and persuaded him—but in the end, it was like a thread of fate he couldn't help but grasp.
Still, Hyun-mo could understand that feeling. He himself had scripts he desperately wanted to shoot.
Of course, he'd never even auditioned for them. Manager Heo had talked him out of it, saying they didn't fit his image, but more than that, the bigger question had always been: "Can I really pull this off?"
"Still, he shouldn't have done that…"
At least now he understood the situation. He'd also learned a fair amount about Oh Jung-seop's death.
'Unless you're completely obsessed with acting…'
Was there really a need to devote your entire life to acting like that? Especially when you had a family. Then again, from the start, Oh Jung-seop had been a man who had nothing in his head but acting.
'I never want to live like that.'
Of course, he wanted to act well. But just to the extent of wanting to be good at it—not to the point of some singularity or whatever it was. Why go so far as to throw away your family and your own life?
"Ugh…"
Hyun-mo shook his head.
"You know, there's one thing hyung-nim said that's been sitting uncomfortably with me…"
"What is it?"
"Well, the day before he passed. He said something weird—about how he'd failed at the singularity of acting, or something like that. I think?"
"Ah… failed?"
"Yeah. Hyun-mo, we're here, so wake up the others."
"Ah, right…"
The conversation had carried them all the way to their destination. Right on cue, the car slid into the funeral home parking lot.
Now, the time was drawing near to send off that mad, great actor in peace.