The curtains were drawn, and mats were spread across the floor.
Only a single standing lamp remained lit. It cast the dim yellow glow of an incandescent bulb.
In the middle of it all, Yoon Hansung offered two pieces of advice.
“If you immerse yourself too deeply in negative emotions, they may erupt through violence or self harm. No matter what emotions surface, remember that you are precious people, and restrain yourselves from destructive behavior.”
The actors flinched slightly at the chilling warning.
“And from this moment on, let us promise to bury every story shared here within our hearts the moment we walk out that door. Actors live by empathizing with the emotions of others. Anyone who replaces another person’s sorrow with curiosity does not deserve to be an actor. Isn’t that right?”
One by one, they stood and swore to confidentiality. It was necessary, since the assignment required digging into the deepest parts of the participants’ emotions and memories.
“Let’s begin by taking volunteers.”
Hansung glanced around the room. Two or three hands went up. He chose one male student, who stepped onto the mat.
“What’s your name?”
“Shin Suho.”
“I’ll give you the floor. Suho, why don’t you sit in whatever position feels most comfortable?”
Suho hunched over on the mat, wrapping his arms around his knees. Facing his memories was frightening.
“What was the strongest emotion in your life, Suho? Any emotion is fine. Joy, sorrow, anything.”
“Joy.”
Joy was not usually the emotion people chose.
Positive emotions were difficult to relive intensely. What kind of joy could have remained as the strongest emotion of his life?
“When did you feel that joy?”
“...When my parents got divorced, they decided to take one child each, and my mother chose me.”
Thud.
The atmosphere instantly grew heavy.
“Could you explain the situation in more detail?”
“My dad was always indifferent to us. I only realized it later, but he had another woman. The atmosphere at home was always awful, so I used to wish he just wouldn’t come home. Whenever it was only my mom, my younger sibling, and me, we got along really well. Maybe because we shared a common enemy.”
“But your father said he would take one of you?”
“I still don’t understand that. I don’t know if it was about continuing his bloodline or if he just hated the feeling of losing.”
“How did they decide who would go with whom?”
“My dad generously gave my mom the right to choose, as if he were doing some great deed. Looking back, he was such a bastard. He told her to pick the cuter one like he was handing out puppies for adoption. Even though I loved my younger sibling and we were very close, at that moment... yeah. I desperately wanted my mom to choose me.”
“When your mother chose you, do you remember how you felt?”
“...Yes. It was horrible, but I was happy. I saw my sibling’s expression then. I think part of me even felt smug. I was unbelievably selfish, even as a kid. Thinking about myself back then makes me sick.”
Suho’s confession was soaked in deeply rooted guilt.
Could that truly be called joy?
As though he were vomiting out a scream, Suho’s expression gradually twisted.
The confession of his childhood selfishness was painful to watch, but Hansung did not comfort him prematurely. He remained completely immersed.
“What expression did your sibling have?”
“They looked like they were about to cry. Their eyes filled with tears from despair... but they still nodded at me as if to say it was okay. Such an idiot.”
This was not joy.
Suho was mocking the very idea of his own happiness.
It was bitter sorrow.
“Don’t suppress the emotions you felt back then. Let’s bring them up slowly. Focus. Your father’s expression, your mother’s expression, your sibling’s expression. The feeling you had while looking at them... try to put it into words.”
Slowly, Suho rose to his feet.
He swallowed once. Then again.
And finally, the first words he managed to force out were:
“Jinho. Uh... I’m sorry... I’m sorry...”
It was a desperate apology that sounded as though he were coughing up blood.
Some stared blankly into space.
In the end, there were actors who could not break through their emotional shells and instead collapsed into self blame.
They took a break in the middle of the emotionally draining exercise.
Not long afterward, Yoon Hansung spoke to the group again.
“I think I’ll participate as well.”
The members looked startled.
“Since there’s no one to guide me, it’ll be more of a monologue than emotional maximization, but use it as a reference. Observe what kind of emotions someone like me, who has gone through this stage many times, carries and how those emotions are expressed.”
The actors slowly gathered and sat in a circle.
Yoon Hansung removed his shoes and socks and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. When he raked a hand through his waxed hair, it no longer looked like the guide leading them into an emotional swamp, but an exhausted human being struggling inside it himself.
Barefoot beneath the dim light, he stood silently.
Eyes closed, he immersed himself completely. His eyelids trembled faintly.
“Daughter.”
At that single word, everyone held their breath.
“My daughter. My beloved daughter. My only daughter, Bo-eun. I still remember the moment # Nоvеlight # you were born. Your first cry, which should have remained the greatest joy of my life, now brings me to tears every time I remember it.”
The sorrow, refined through thousands, tens of thousands of repetitions, settled into the listeners’ hearts like frozen frost.
When it collided with the warmth inside them and melted into corrosive grief, their chests tightened, and tears spilled before they even realized it.
“Daughter. I remember the first time you clearly said, ‘Daddy, take care.’ Maybe you didn’t even know what it meant. Maybe your mother taught you to say it. But hearing your clear little voice filled my chest completely. I only laughed and patted your head then, but the moment I opened the door to leave the house, you burst into tears as if your whole world had collapsed, your eyes asking me why.
Now, every time I return to an empty home and feel your absence, I am the one crying as if I’ve lost the world, clutching a heart filled with resentment and screaming why inside myself.”
Drip—
A tear fell onto the mat.
That sense of loss was so vivid and raw, as though he had lost his daughter only yesterday, that the people watching him began crying as well.
“When my young daughter endured pain greater than anything I had ever known, became more mature than I was, and whispered in my ear, ‘Don’t cry, daddy, I’m okay,’ I cried because the hand clutching my finger felt so heartbreakingly small. My determination to protect you gracefully in my arms no matter what storms came into this world was torn apart more easily than a single sheet of paper, and all I could do... was pray.”
Torment.
Watching him relive that despair was brutal.
When Yoon Hansung’s monologue finally ended sometime later, every single person in the room was crying. This was especially true for the actors whose emotions had already been heightened and whose emotional shells had been stripped away. They absorbed Yoon Hansung’s sorrow completely and felt it as though it were their own.
Those naked emotions were the source of actor Yoon Hansung’s sentiment.
Everyone present caught a glimpse of the deepest core of his seemingly invincible sorrowful acting.
And it gave the actors courage to confront their own emotions.
‘He’s someone who feels other people’s tragedies as deeply as his own.’
For the first time, Yoomyeong thought he understood why Yoon Hansung had spoken to him in his previous life.
Yoon Hansung was someone who deeply empathized with sorrow.
Even with nameless extras who struggled endlessly without ever seeing the light.
‘He’s a good person and a good actor, but...’
There was something Yoomyeong wanted to say, but he held his tongue.
As it neared nine in the evening and everyone except Yoomyeong had completed their assignments, Yoon Hansung suddenly said something unexpected.
“I want to thank everyone who sincerely participated in today’s difficult exercises, and I also want to ask for your understanding regarding something.”
The exhausted members lifted their heads in confusion.
“Shin Yoomyeong.”
“Yes?”
“You may have heard that I recommended him for this workshop. But actually, today was the first time I’ve seen him in person. Professor Lee Jae Pil showed me a video of him acting in class.”
The members nodded.
“Exercises in emotional maximization are meant to break emotional limits, but I don’t think they would mean much for him.”
“Ooh—”
Everyone reacted at once to the praise coming from the industry’s current star actor.
“I heard he only started acting recently, so I honestly don’t know how he’s able to draw out emotions like that. Perhaps he has weathered far more storms in life than someone his age should have.
Anyway, he has already passed the stage where expanding his emotional range would be useful to him, and I’m curious about his variation instead. So I’d like to give him a different assignment.”
Everyone’s curiosity sharpened instantly.
“I want to see him perform an entire monodrama.”
At the shocking assignment, everyone’s stunned gaze turned toward Yoomyeong.
Monodrama.
A one person play.
Performing an entire act rather than a short excerpt meant at least ninety minutes on stage alone. It required carrying the same running time as a full theater production entirely by oneself.
The mental and physical demands were enormous. The slightest lapse in concentration could instantly shatter the audience’s immersion.
“Is that possible? If you already have a monodrama script memorized, that would be ideal. If not, you can perform while reading from the script.”
Yoomyeong thought for a moment.
What he was considering was not whether to accept the assignment, nor whether he would memorize the script or read it.
He was deciding which monodrama script among the ones he already knew by heart he should choose.
“Yes.”
“What’s the title of the play?”
“I’ll... tell you tomorrow.”
Yoomyeong postponed revealing the title until the day of the performance itself.
The exhausted actors suddenly felt adrenaline surge through them at the thought of such an exciting confrontation.
The gathered members looked even more exhausted than usual.
The aftermath of the previous day’s emotional maximization exercise had been severe. There had been so much shouting, sobbing, and screaming that the building security guard had rushed over in alarm.
Some people had gone home emotionally drained and immediately collapsed asleep, while others had spent the entire night awake because the resurfaced trauma refused to let them rest.
And yet, not a single person was absent today.
“A ninety minute monodrama... even with two months of preparation, it sounds brutal.”
“Do you think he’ll just end up reading from the script?”
“Memorization isn’t even the main problem. Can he actually endure it without collapsing halfway through? Just standing alone on stage for ten minutes dries out your mouth and leaves you exhausted.”
“It’s difficult for the audience too. Can we even stay immersed in a solo performance for ninety straight minutes?”
“Exactly. Maintaining emotional tension alone for that long sounds insanely difficult.”
“I’m really curious what script he picked.”
Most people remained skeptical about the entire event.
“But how are scene transitions even handled in a monodrama?”
The moment someone asked that question, Yoomyeong entered the lecture hall, and the room instantly fell silent.
After casually greeting everyone with a “Hello,” he walked to the podium that had been pushed aside on the stage. He found the remote control there and switched on the projector.
Woooong—
A blue screen lit up the front wall, and part of Yoomyeong’s body blocked the light, casting a shadow across the whiteboard.
‘What is he doing...?’
Despite everyone’s confusion, Yoomyeong immediately turned the projector back off. He simply slipped the remote into his pocket.
Kiiiik—
At exactly three o’clock, Yoon Hansung opened the lecture hall door. Everyone hurried back to their seats.
“Without further delay, shall we begin?”
Yoomyeong stepped forward and asked for the curtains to be closed and the lights turned off. Once the room was swallowed in darkness, he turned the projector back on.
The eerie blue light spilled across his face, staining it an unnatural shade of blue.
“I couldn’t sleep because I was too curious. What’s the title of the play?”
“It’s . Let’s begin.”
At the sound of that title, Yoon Hansung visibly flinched.
