Aura of a Genius Actor

Yu Myeong's performance ended there.

But Antoine knew what came afterward.

After killing Mumu, Gerasim fled the estate and returned to his hometown.

From that day onward, he never met another woman, never raised another dog, and never formed a close bond with anyone again.

A masterpiece of modern Russian literature, the story carried a message: in a world where human beings could own other human beings, a person stripped of agency was denied even the right to possess emotions, and that denial ultimately amounted to the loss of one's humanity.

When he had first read the novel, Gerasim's feelings had seemed understandable enough.

Only today did Antoine feel them with painful clarity.

How a single little dog could weigh as much as an entire lifetime to one person.

How strangling that dog with his own hands was no different from murdering his own heart and life—a suicide of the self as a human being.

In a short one man performance, that actor had conveyed the idea brilliantly.

Clap clap clap clap clap—

"Bravo! That was incredible!!"

The moment Antoine's applause and praise erupted, his colleagues joined in as if they had been waiting for permission.

Anyone with eyes had no choice but to acknowledge that performance.

"That was extraordinary. To turn Mumu into a one man play like that... with nothing but sound effects and acting..."

"Even though it was only a stuffed doll, I felt as if I could see the dog's clear eyes filled with trust as it followed Gerasim."

"We'd like to stage this version ourselves someday."

Most of the actors' eyes were damp.

After the compliments had gone around the room, Vallon delivered his finishing blow.

"You were obviously all impressed by the acting, but did nobody notice something else?"

The actors tilted their heads in confusion.

Then Antoine raised a question with a suspicious look.

"Come to think of it, how did you synchronize the sound? Did you rehearse with our sound technician beforehand?"

Vallon nodded as though pleased by the observation.

"Exactly. That's what I wanted to talk about. The sound file... it's a single continuous track."

"What?"

"He created the audio file after calculating exactly how he would perform. Then he performed by calculating the timing of the completed sound file."

"..."

A sharp silence passed among the actors.

What exactly was Vallon talking about?

Dialogue and sound normally served as cues for one another.

Sometimes the sound gave the cue for a line.

Sometimes a line became the cue for a sound effect.

But calculating acting intervals to create the sound design, then calculating the sound design intervals to guide the acting?

That was absurd.

How could such a thing even be possible?

"How is that even possible...?"

Someone finally gave voice to the thought that had been hanging in the air like a groan.

Yu Myeong answered calmly.

"I'm studying how to understand the way I act."

At his words, Miho, who had been watching silently, smiled.

"A challenge? Come on. I told you, I was just studying."

"You charged in thinking, 'If you can do it, why can't I?'"

Ignoring Miho's teasing, Yu Myeong turned his head away.

Judging by his reaction, he could not entirely deny it.

The assignment Miho had given him had been simple.

"Mumu is perfect for a test. Try performing something that can persuade an audience through expressions and physical acting alone, without relying on words. Let's see how much you've learned in three months."

But Yu Myeong had prepared a tape.

He selected portions from the novel, lightly adapted them into a performance script, rehearsed repeatedly until he found the rhythm, and then arranged recorded sounds to match his acting.

After that, he practiced again against the completed audio.

It was an incredibly meticulous process.

Since Gerasim was mute, matching dialogue timing was not part of the challenge.

Even so, predicting sound cues and performing to them without ever looking at a clock was far from easy.

Yet he had done it.

"It wasn't perfect. There were places where the timing was slightly off."

"I know. I need more practice."

Even after accomplishing something remarkable, he focused on its shortcomings.

He could hardly do otherwise.

His standards themselves had risen.

After all, the person he compared himself to was essentially a god of acting.

"Graduation."

"Huh...?"

"That's the end of your lessons during this trip. Your test score is... sixty two points."

"That bad?"

"If you'd only completed the assignment I gave you, you would have scored a perfect fifty five. You got greedy and earned seven bonus points."

"Really? Then I did well?"

"Be quiet!"

Miho whipped her head away with a huff.

Laughing, Yu Myeong scratched the base of her tail.

Moments later she could no longer endure it and rolled across the seat.

Will I still get chances to learn after the trip is over?

"Of course. You still have a mountain of things left to learn. You're decent by human standards, but you've got a long way to go."

Yu Myeong looked at Miho with gratitude.

The possession he had accepted for her sake seemed to have become something that benefited him instead.

Hiss—

Clank.

The train arrived in Paris, the final destination of the journey.

"You made it?"

The person Yu Myeong had come to meet in Paris was Ryu Shin.

Since he was already traveling through Europe, he had thought it would be nice to visit Ryu Shin during his studies abroad.

And if the timing worked out, perhaps he could even watch one of his performances before returning home.

That was why he had planned Paris as the final stop of the trip.

Fortunately, the timing could not have been better.

Ryu Shin really was preparing a production.

Mumu—the same work Yu Myeong had briefly performed in Cannes.

Ryu Shin's production would open in three days.

Through Vallon, Yu Myeong had already secured a ticket for opening night.

My Gerasim must be completely different from his. I wonder how he's approaching the role... and how he's directing it.

"How are preparations going?"

"Whew... that man is driving me insane."

That man.

Yu Myeong immediately knew who he meant.

"What's he doing?"

"...The man has absolutely no common sense."

"..."

"I'll admit it helps break people out of their habits, but..."

Despite all the complaints, he clearly had no regrets about following Hugo.

Perhaps he had simply accumulated too much frustration over the past few months.

Watching Ryu Shin vent in front of him, Yu Myeong smiled.

It felt as though they had grown a little closer.

"Anyway, let's go."

"Where?"

"Hugo invited us to dinner. I mentioned you were arriving today and that I'd be leaving early. He told me to bring you."

"Just like that?"

"...That's the kind of person he is."

In the end, Yu Myeong followed Ryu Shin to a restaurant.

Hugo Viard greeted him looking as impeccably stylish as the word Parisian itself.

"Mr. Yu Myeong. Welcome."

"Thank you for inviting me, Mr. Hugo."

"Have I rudely stolen time away from two friends? Sit down, sit down."

Ryu Shin muttered that Hugo had known exactly what he was doing.

Hugo pretended not to hear him.

For someone with such an illustrious reputation as an artist, he seemed remarkably gifted at making the people around him grumble.

Vallon had been the same.

Now, after only four months, Ryu Shin had joined the club.

"Did you enjoy your travels?"

"Very much. I've never had this kind of experience before."

"By the way... I heard you performed Mumu with Vallon's company?"

The food had not even arrived yet, but Hugo immediately asked the question that interested him most.

"I wouldn't call it a performance. At Vallon's request, I acted out part of it in front of the actors."

"Haha. How did Antoine react? I should have been there to see the look on his face."

"You know Antoine Monnier well?"

"He acted in one of my films. Had the audacity to turn down an offer from the Bryse Company."

From beside them, Ryu Shin said flatly,

"He didn't reject Bryse Company. He rejected you because he couldn't tolerate your personality."

Hugo ignored that as well.

"He seemed like a good man. He told me very politely that he found it deeply impressive."

"Hahaha! If that man went so far as to speak politely instead of tossing out a casual compliment, then he lost his composure."

Yu Myeong thought back to Antoine's expression.

He had not seemed particularly shaken...

"If that laid back fellow offered formal praise, then he was far more shocked than usual. He's probably fired up right now. I wonder when I should go tease him."

Muttering excitedly to himself, Hugo leaned closer.

"I want to see it too..."

"I'm sorry, but that won't be possible."

"Why not? Come on. Show me. It isn't even that long."

Yu Myeong glanced once at Hugo, whose whining was entirely at odds with his sophisticated appearance, then at the slightly tense Ryu Shin.

Afterward, he refused once more, clearly and firmly.

"Mr. Vallon helped me tremendously in the past. That's why I volunteered to do him a favor."

"..."

"As far as I know, I don't owe you anything yet, Mr. Hugo."

The refusal was almost excessively direct.

He did not want Ryu Shin, who had poured everything into his studies abroad, to be placed in direct comparison with him.

Regardless of which of them might come out ahead.

Judging from the way both Vallon and Ryu Shin treated Hugo Viard, he seemed the sort of person who could become very persistent whenever he wanted something.

If that was true, then the best solution was to leave no opening whatsoever.

In the end, Hugo reluctantly abandoned the request.

"You've barely spent any time around Hugo, yet you figured out how to handle him already."

"Haha... nothing like that. I'm just tired from traveling."

Ryu Shin studied him for a moment.

Then, as if he had seen through Yu Myeong's intentions, he smiled bitterly.

Changing the subject, he began talking about Hugo Viard as a director.

"Still, the more I work with him, the more incredible he seems."

"In what way?"

"He demands impossible things. To break the frameworks actors trap themselves in, he asks for things completely outside common sense."

"Did he do that while preparing this production too?"

Ryu Shin took a long drag from his cigarette and exhaled it like a sigh.

"He told me to act according to someone else's emotions instead of my own."

"...What does that mean?"

"Come see the opening. You'll understand."

"...Hmm."

Leaving behind those cryptic words, Ryu Shin departed, promising to meet again in a few days.

Bryse Studio Theater.

As expected of a city built on tourism, the audience consisted of people from many different backgrounds.

A notice was posted at the entrance.

"English subtitle service is available for this performance. Please refer to the display screen above the stage."

Wow. They even offer something like this.

Even though Gerasim had no lines, the other characters would all be speaking French.

Yu Myeong had been disappointed at the thought of missing the dialogue.

This solved that problem nicely.

The cast is... Gerasim, the Mistress, Gavrila the head servant, Tatyana whom Gerasim first falls in love with, Kapiton whom the Mistress forces Tatyana to marry, and several supporting actors... They're doing a full scale production.

"So many actors. And he only arrived recently, yet he landed the lead role. Ryu Shin's pretty impressive."

"It's Ryu Shin. Take away his persistence and there's nothing left. He must have worked himself to death here too."

While he chatted with Miho, the performance time arrived.

The house lights dimmed.

The signal that one world was ending and another was about to begin.

It was always the most exciting moment.

Then—

"Tatyana! This is Gerasim, the new servant."

Tatyana was a timid woman with a petite frame.

For no particular reason, the sight of Gerasim's stern face alone made her flinch.

"Oh my. I... I'm sorry."

While doing housework, she accidentally bumped into Gerasim.

Startled by her own mistake, she apologized over and over.

Of course, Gerasim could not hear her.

He merely passed by without expression.

Again and again.

Gradually, Gerasim began paying attention to the sight of her hurrying about.

Then one day—

"Why does that woman jump every time she's startled? She's kind of cute..."

Yu Myeong nearly gasped.

Gerasim could not speak.

Yet he could hear a voice.

Not from Ryu Shin's mouth.

From the audio system.

It was Gerasim's inner thoughts.

What surprised Yu Myeong was not the choice to play internal monologue through recorded audio.

It was the fact that the voice in the recording was not Ryu Shin's.

The recording had been done by another actor.

And yet...

How was Ryu Shin's Gerasim producing expressions that matched the voice from the recording so perfectly?

Act according to someone else's emotions instead of your own.

At that moment, Yu Myeong remembered the strange words Ryu Shin had spoken a few days earlier.