Hollywood Actor

His face, crushed by burns, reflected in the mirror.

Looking at the appearance that had been with him since childhood, the man fluttered the sleeve of his patient's gown.

"Sing once again with me~"

The theme song of "The Phantom of the Opera" resounded powerfully in the hospital room.

The man, whose face was so grotesque that he didn't even need to dress up as a ghost, closed his eyes.

When he knew his dream was to be an actor, people said that with such a monstrous face, he could never become an actor.

No one supported him.

"我的靈魂和你~"

Lyrics in Chinese flowed from his mouth.

Living in America, the word he heard most was "ching-chong."

Rather than despairing over his skin color, which was not hidden even by the horrific burns, he willingly learned Chinese.

Hoping for even a Chinese role.

"夢の中でささやく~"

He continued to sing in Japanese.

He learned whatever he could to overcome the limitations of his burned face and the minor roles available to Asians in Hollywood.

His desperate and seemingly inefficient actions were his earnestness, and sometimes the world shows miracles to such people.

As it did when he was recognized as an actor.

The man's song, naturally performing a duet without accompaniment, gradually moved towards its final act.

"Sing for me! For me!"

With the last lyrics in Korean, the man's lips quivered.

Among the many languages he had learned, it was his adoptive parents' wish for him to learn his native language. 

It was one of the few legacies that reminded him of his adoptive parents, who had a different skin color.

Clap, clap, clap-

Applause reached the ears of the man, enjoying the last lingering notes.

"It's definitely Ian. I should call Broadway that the real Phantom has appeared!"

Nick, a Hollywood eccentric and agent known for wearing white suits even as pajamas, and Ian embraced lightly.

"Don't just make a fuss, bring some roles."

"Hahaha, who would reject our actor, shining with an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor! Of course, I can get it."

Ian glanced at Nick's cheerful face and clicked his tongue lightly.

"Looking at your face, it seems things didn't go well. Is my raised price a burden?"

Nick, taken aback by the accurate observation, sighed.

"Really, you're my actor, but you would have succeeded faster and more easily in something other than acting. No, how about we go into business together now?"

"…Nonsense."

Ian looked at the trophy placed on one side of the hospital room.

As the worries became reality, a bitterness swept over him.

No matter how good his acting was, the place for an actor with a ruined face was extremely limited.

'It's not for no reason that half of my acting life consisted of zombies and minor villains. Even those roles were hard to come by.'

No matter how much special makeup is used to hide his original face, there's no reason to specifically use an actor with a burned and ruined face. It was difficult enough to even receive voice-acting jobs where his face wouldn't appear.

Stuntman? He had done so few because of his skin color.

'It's ironic. I received an award that everyone desires, and this is what happens.'

Not even a supporting role, but now even appearing as a fleeting extra has become difficult.

"An Oscar for Best Supporting Actor playing a zombie wouldn't work, would it?"

"Unfortunately, there aren't many friends that bold."

It's not an uncommon situation. Actors whose value only increased after a single successful work failing to even get audition opportunities.

'I didn't even aspire to be a lead.'

Wishful thinking.

He hasn't harbored the excessive imagination of hoping for a leading role with a ruined face. He just wanted to stand in front of the camera, but now even that has become difficult.

It was too bitter to be the result of effort.

"How about focusing on the interviews and lecture requests that will be pouring in for you for a while now that it has come to this? That alone would mean you wouldn't have to worry about money for the rest of your life."

"Quit acting and go around boasting that I'm an actor who overcame disability and succeeded?"

"There's no need to react so negatively. You're becoming hope for people! Look at this!"

Nick handed over a phone screen filled with articles rambling about someone's life.

Ian pushed it away without really looking at the screen.

"You know. I didn't try to become someone's hope. I just wanted to be an actor."

Nick, seemingly frustrated, unbuttoned a few buttons of his dress shirt and sat down on the hospital bed.

"It might sound strange coming from me, but why are you so obsessed with acting?"

It was a phrase tiredly spat out by connections who had left him, exhausted and hopeless.

Unlike usual, when he would just give a vague response, Ian was capricious, perhaps because he was facing surgery soon.

"There were three homeless people I've seen in my life."

"Homeless?"

"The first was a homeless person I saw in my neighborhood when I was a child. To anyone looking, he was just a homeless person."

"And?"

"Later, I found out he was Ben Roberts. He was in makeup for a role."

"What?! Goodness gracious!"

Nick, a renowned agent, was shocked that he had seen a leading Hollywood actor in such a state.

"To me, at a young age, that was like magic, something amazing."

The first homeless person instilled in him a longing for acting.

"The second was a woman I met while living as a homeless person after losing my family and my face. She was living in a small car, nurturing a dream of becoming an actor."

"An actor living in a car? Don't tell me…"

"You're thinking of the right person. Eventually, she became a dazzling star of Hollywood."

Ian, who had started living as a homeless person due to abuse and neglect from a foster family, the second homeless person showed hope.

"The third was someone I saw at a homeless facility. A person lost to drugs, out of their mind. As you know, such people are common, right?"

"Indeed."

More than half of the homeless in the U.S. are addicted to alcohol or drugs, and their end is mostly the same.

"In the end, the person died in the facility from drug addiction, but later, reporters swarmed in. Turned out, the person was a popular child actor."

"Ah?! Yes, there was such an incident."

"Just being famous in the past made many people feel sorry."

The end was different for the other homeless people dying daily in LA County.

Ian, who would die without anyone to mourn him, was even more obsessed with acting for that reason.

After confessing a fact he hadn't told anyone, Ian smiled playfully.

"Well, the biggest reason is that I like acting. So you know, right?"

"Ha! Who do you think I am? I'll grab the old folks by the collar if I have to and get you a role! So, how about getting facial treatment along with the surgery you're having this time?"

"This?"

"Stop using the excuse of being too busy acting."

It was a scar that I had almost neglected since childhood due to the prohibitive cost of medical care in the U.S.

"Now that you have the money, it might be hard to completely heal given how long it's been, but reducing the repulsion alone will bring in more roles."

Ian touched his face tentatively.

He felt the unpleasant, rough texture. Wrapped in a strange feeling at the thought of erasing the scars he had lived with for so long, he made a joke to hide his feelings.

"I was avoiding treatment because I might become too handsome."

"Hahaha, that's the best joke I've heard this year."

"Don't believe me? You'd be surprised if you saw photos from my childhood."

"Of course, I don't believe you. I don't believe what I haven't seen with my own eyes. Bring out that great photo then."

Ian sighed at the realization that he had no photos to show. He wished he could see Nick's smug face turn to shock.

Nick, chuckling at Ian's speechlessness, lightly punched his shoulder.

"Anyway, just make sure to get through the surgery well. I'll make sure you're too busy acting to think about anything else."

There had been a recent diagnosis of early-stage colon cancer, possibly due to his years of homelessness, but both were not overly worried since it was caught early.

"Don't worry. I'm not going to die."

That was the last conversation Nick had with Ian before the surgery.

***

"My last words, that's ridiculous."

Ian trembled, fiddling with his shrunken hands.

He wasn't sure what had happened, but Nick's voice faintly heard in a dream, remained clear in his memory.

-'Ian Price, buried here, who said he wouldn't just die like that' – get up before we engrave that on your tombstone!

If it had been Nick who had always kept his promises, it would have been more than possible.

'Even so, that's not it, buddy.'

Ian might have hoped to kick off the coffin lid and leap out in shame, but Nick's plan strangely worked.

Ian woke up early in the morning and looked around his room. It was a quaint room with Korean books taught by a Korean babysitter.

It was his childhood room, buried in distant memories.

He hesitated to look away, fearing that all of this would turn into a mirage and scatter.

He left the room, passing through the silent living room, and carefully opened another door.

The even breathing of someone still asleep was audible.

The faces of a white couple were visible in the faint light coming through the window. Ian sighed in relief, seeing that they were still there today.

'I'd like to keep watching them, but…'

He quietly closed the door, not wanting to disturb the couple with a good relationship, just from seeing the pale shoulder lines exposed outside the blanket, imagining the effort from the previous night.

Ssshhh-

Ian freshened up and felt his skin.

It was hard to believe it was his own face, so smooth to the touch, and he saw a child, marveling at his plump cheeks.

"Nick, I told you. I was handsome when I was younger, too."

The biggest shackles that deprived him of countless opportunities were gone.

He no longer has to be pointed at when saying his dream is to become an actor.

He can try for the numerous roles he had to give up because of his face, and there's no need to be trapped by the limit of being a supporting actor.

"I want to act like crazy."

The cute child in the mirror shed tears along with a smile of joy as if swallowing past sorrows.