Two Versions Existing Simultaneously

"So you've found a replacement?" asked the director who had also been stressing about the upcoming shoot.

Although it was possible to delay the scenes with the child actor to later weeks, because school was about to resume soon, it was better to get an actor as fast as possible to get their scenes shot and done with as soon as possible.

"Yes," Mok Du-ho responded, spinning around in his chair.

"How was he? Up to par?" 

"Up to par. Hahaha," Du-ho chuckled and shook his head while spinning his chair even faster. "No no. This child, he's beyond the par line."

"Really?" 

"Yeah. I would call him a diamond in the rough but he's pretty refined already. The performance that he showed me today during the audition, I nearly jumped out of my chair and leaped in joy about our careers being saved. Hahaha," he laughed. "And guess what?"

"What?" asked the director who was getting more intrigued about this child actor who he didn't even know the name of yet.

"It's his first time acting period. He's never taken an acting class before... or even acted in his free time according to his father. The performance he showed me was the first time he's ever acted and..." Mok Du-ho couldn't even finish his sentence.

"...Really? Couldn't they just be lying about that?" asked a skeptical director.

"Come on, Pan Seok. You know me. Do you think I'd fall for those sorts of lies so easily?" he asked the director, rolling his eyes. Many adults in the past took their children who had many years of acting lessons under their belt and tried to pretend that it was their first time acting in order to make their child seem like a prodigy. 

"No. Then if what you're saying is true, there's a new monster entering the industry," asked Pan Seok who started tapping his feet, excited about meeting the child.

"Yep. He might be as big of a monster as Yeong Tae... or even bigger."

Yeong Tae was the only person in the past five years who could be regarded as a genius. There were plenty of monsters but a genius was in a different realm than them.

Pan Seok gulped. "And this child's first role ever..."

"Is in our movie," Mok Du-ho finished the sentence. Both men had the same look on their faces: nervousness, excitement, and a little bit of fear. If the child truly was the monster that Mok Du-ho believed him to be, there was a lot of pressure on them to make a successful movie otherwise, years in the future, they'd be regarded as the people who failed to highlight and properly utilize the talent that was gifted to them.

""Gulp""

***

"When are we going to meet this child actor Mok Du-ho been praising?" asked Seung Mal-chin who was sitting on the chair with his name tag on it.

The previous actor who was going to play the younger version of his character, although he didn't want to be mean, after the performance the child had given during the table read, Mal-chin couldn't help but wonder if he should tone down the quality of his own acting so that the two versions of the character didn't clash.

"Just be patient. He should be arriving in a few minutes," responded Pan Seok.

Due to the location and the schedule of the actors, the first scene that was going to be filmed was the scene where the child version and adult version of Han Shik talked to each other in jail after Han Shik was arrested.

Seung Mal-chin was excited. Although this movie didn't have a massive budget and it wasn't set to become a box office giant, he really enjoyed the script and the character he got the opportunity to play.

If the child actor lived up to everything that had been hyped up about him by the casting director, that meant he could put a hundred percent effort into his acting. Even if he doesn't receive a huge paycheck, at the very least he could receive a few nominations for awards that he could brag about.

A quarter-hour later, the person Seung Mal-chin had been waiting for arrived.

Eom Jae-hwa entered the first film location with his uncle from his maternal side. Because his parents had to go to work, they had asked his uncle, Bae Taeyang, who was a university student, to serve as his "manager" and "guardian" for the day.

Bae Taeyang didn't expect to be on the set of a movie. He didn't recognize any of the directors or actors that were on the set at the moment because most of them were unknown to the general populace but just the fact that they were a part of the system that created movies shown in theaters was more than enough for Taeyang to freak out over.

The first he did as Jae-hwa's manager was introduce himself to everyone important.

Once that was done, it was Jae-hwa's turn to do the same.

Bowing, he introduced himself to the director but also to the other people who were listening in on the conversation, "Hello! I'm Eom Jae-hwa."

Pan Seok had been keeping his eyes on Jae-hwa the entire time, even while he was talking to Taeyang. After observing the appearance of the child, he was satisfied because he suited the look of Han Shik as a child; someone who was beautiful for his age, handsome, and looked like the epitome of innocence which served as a juxtaposition for his hidden personality.

"Nice to meet you Eom Jae-hwa. I'm Director Pan Seok. It's great to have you on board," Pan Seok replied.

"Thank you... uh..."

It was his first time being on set so Eom Jae-hwa didn't know how to refer to people; this wasn't taught in the script that he read. 

"You can just call me director," Pan Seok informed him.

"Okay! Thank you, director. I'm really excited to be here. Thank you for having me," Jae-hwa responded, his eyes bouncing around the room, looking around in admiration and excitement although he tried to hide it.

'Hahaha. He's such a gentle child. How could this boy play such a corrupt role?' Pan Seok wondered. 'But I guess that's what acting was. Playing someone you aren't.'

Seung Mal-chin who had been waiting for the opportunity to insert himself, joined the conversation.

"Hello, Eom Jae-hwa," he greeted the child with an extended hand. As they were shaking hands, he continued, "I'm Seung Mal-chin. I'll be playing the adult version of Han Shik."

Eom Jae-hwa wasn't someone who admired celebrities or followed idols. He was into reading books and watching cartoons about superheroes.

But standing in front of an actual actor, a strange feeling leaked into his heart, making him oddly nervous.

"Hello, Mister. I've watched some of your movies in the past week. It's an honor to work with an actor of your caliber," Jae-hwa spoke about what was on his mind.

"An actor of my caliber?" Seung Mal-chin began to chuckle. This child in front of him oddly felt like he was older than his physical body while simultaneously being true to his age.

"Thank you, Jae-hwa. It's my honor to work with you as well." Seeing Jae-hwa's face blush at the casual compliment, Mal-chin was comparing him to some of the child actors he'd worked with before. Most of them took themselves very seriously because of the training that they received from their parents and teachers. Compared to them, Jae-hwa was a breath of fresh air.

'I just hope he doesn't fail to live up to my expectations,' Seung Mal-chin thought to himself. It was cute to be working with someone as adorable as this kid but at the end of the day, it was work and if Jae-hwa wasn't good at acting, whatever positive feelings he had would be tossed into the trash.

 Pan Seok interjected with a reassuring smile on his face, "Alright. We're thrilled to have you both on board. Shall we get started?"

"Yes!" Eom Jae-hwa's face gleamed.

Jae-hwa, accompanied by his uncle, was sent off to have his make-up done and get dressed for the role. Because they had a different actor in mind initially, they had to make do with the wardrobe they had prepared for the previous child.

Thankfully, both boys had similar bodies so the outfits suited Jae-hwa almost down to the tee.

Jae-hwa had only received the script on the day of the audition a week ago but the number of notes he'd taken on it would make you believe he's had it for months.

The pages were already worn down and when Pan Seok saw him reading the script while waiting for the lightning and cameras to finish being checked, he couldn't help but feel tempted to ask for the script to see what notes the child had taken.

To understand the story he was going to be inserted into, Jae-hwa had learned and memorized everything. From the first line to the last, he knew everything there was to the script. He even came up with extra material in his head to flesh out some vague parts.

***

Han Shik was sitting in the cold lifeless room with his hands cuffed. He was staring off into the distance, his mind elsewhere when his attention was suddenly grabbed by a voice behind him.

"How disappointing," the voice said.

Han Shik didn't turn around. He just asked, "What are you doing here?"

The voice responded, "To question you."

"About what?"

"Hahaha."

"What's so funny?"

"The fact that you're pretending you don't know what I'm referring to."

The voice got closer and the source of it planted his hands on Han Shik's shoulders, one finger at a time.

"Twenty years. Do you know how long that is? That's 7,300 days. 175,200 hours. 10,512,000 minutes."

"I know how long twenty years is," Han Shik responded as the hands on his shoulders closed in towards his neck.

"It seems you don't because if you did... you wouldn't have failed to complete your life's purpose. Wouldn't you agree?" asked the voice.

"I... I didn't fail."

"What do you call this then? Wait. Don't tell me this is all part of your plans. Hahahaha," the voice laughed in a chilly tone that sent chills down the spine of everyone listening.

"I-it is."

"Stop lying to yourself. Stop lying to me. You've failed. Han Shik... you've failed. You're nothing but a failure," said the voice as it grasped Han Shik's neck with its small hands.

The hands may've been small but they were effective as Han Shik was beginning to cough and choke.

"Twenty fucking years I've been waiting and you ruined it. That son of a bitch, Yang In Ho, ruined my life! And this... this is how my revenge ends!" the voice screams.

The cops who had been staring at Han Shik through the one-way glass were unable to see the second person in the room, almost as if they were invisible or — didn't exist.

At first, they saw him speaking to himself and assumed that this was what a crazy serial killer does so they resumed talking amongst themselves and doing other things while simultaneously keeping an eye on the criminal.

However, when they saw fear on his face, the cops stopped what they were doing. Even during his capture and when he was brought into the police station with cameras flashing all around him and relatives of his victims were screaming at him, he never had any reaction.

"He must be void of all emotions. That's the only reason he's able to kill people without any remorse," was what the cops agreed upon.

To see genuine fear on his face, all of them had no choice but to pay attention to everything that was happening in the room in front of them.

Listening to what he was saying to himself, the cops ran out of the room they were in when they saw Han Shik begin to choke. They didn't know what was going on or why he was choking but they needed to save his life so that he could be taken to trial properly to serve justice for the victims.

They couldn't let him take the easy way out.

***

"Cut!" Pan Seok yelled along with the sound of the clapboard shutting to indicate the stoppage of acting.

Everyone in the room didn't say it out loud because they were still flabbergasted by what they had just witnessed but they were thinking to themselves the same sentiment that Mok Du-ho had been preaching; there's a new monster entering the acting world of Korea.

The first one to approach Jae-hwa was Seung Mal-chin who had remained professional the entire time and kept his composure even while surprised by the quality of acting by his partner in order to not ruin the shot.

He expected a good performance because of the casting director's hype but not THIS good.

"Jae-hwa, that was really good acting from you," he complimented the kid who was already out of character.

Eom Jae-hwa smiled at the compliment and told his senior, "Thank you for the compliment."

Seeing the blush on the child's face, he couldn't believe that a performance that creepy and eerie could come from someone so innocent.

He couldn't see the facial expression and body language of Jae-hwa because of the composition of the shot but just the tone and fluctuation of his voice and the way that he read his lines told Mal-chin more than enough.

After a short conversation, Jae-hwa went over to the Pan Seok and asked, "Director... can I please see how it turned out?"

'What a polite child,' Pan Seok laughed inside his head.

"Sure thing," he responded. 

Instead of watching the recorded scene with Jae-hwa, Pan Seok was watching the actor himself, reading his face.

He saw a sparkle in Jae-hwa's eyes as he stared at the screen with a smile that slowly grew on his face the longer he watched.

It was a whisper but Pan Seok heard Jae-hwa utter, "I see. It's not acting that I like."

'Hmm? What did he mean by that?' Pan Seok wondered.

Waiting for the video to be over first, Pan Seok's curiosity got the better of him and he asked the child actor, "Jae-hwa, do you not like acting?"

Eom Jae-hwa, realizing that his whispers were overheard shook his head. "No Director. That's not what I meant. It's just... yeah, I like acting, no," he shook his head again, "I love acting. It's just that more than that, what I like even more is the camera."

"?"

Eom Jae-hwa had a very limited vocabulary as a child so he had to think about it a little before he could find the words he wanted to say.

"A few weeks ago, I had this strange feeling that I wanted to become an actor. My mom wondered if it was just an actual passion of mine or a whim."

Pan Seok listened intently to Jae-hwa's story, treating him less like a child and more like an equal.

"I was also worried that it was just a whim of mine so I was nervous to go to the audition but once I began acting... I knew that it wasn't a whim. I felt really good while acting."

"Then why do you say you like the camera more?" asked Seung Mal-chin who had been listening in from the side.

"Because more than acting, what I like more is the person on the screen that's captured by the camera. It's me but at the same time, it isn't me. It's the character from the script who has come to life because of my acting. It's my performance but at the same time... it's... it's different. I... sorry, I can't really explain what I'm feeling," said Eom Jae-hwa, embarrassed by his own rambling.

Mal-chin and Pan Seok glanced at each other because both of them understood the hidden rule of acting. What's important when you act isn't how well you look in person, it's how well you look on the screen.

The fact that this rookie whose never acted before already understood this concept subconsciously made the two of them feel like were watching a bag of treasures that just kept getting deeper.

As Jae-hwa left to get his sole close-up shot, Mok Du-ho, having arrived at the set a minute ago, asked the director, "He's going to be someone, won't he?"

Pan Seok nodded his head as he watched Eom Jae-hwa perform the same movements and performance as he did for the medium shot.

"I saw a powerful fire in his eyes. As strong as the sun itself," Pan Seok laughed at his own poetic comment. "As long as he keeps that flame alive, everything will orbit around him."

"...Th-that's a beautiful metaphor," Du-ho complimented.

"Thank you."