Chapter 180: Higher!
"Wouldn't it come from... the bright side?"
Priya trailed off uncertainly.
For some reason, she felt as though Yu Myeong was expecting the opposite answer.
"Imagine someone who works incredibly hard toward a goal. Then they're defeated by a competitor by an overwhelming margin. But instead of feeling frustrated, they simply smile and say, 'Oh well, I'll just work harder next time!' Can you really call that a genuine goal?"
His question brought a memory rushing back.
The first time she failed to win a role.
She had cried.
Her family had comforted her.
"It's all right. Just work harder next time."
They urged her to return to her usual cheerful self as quickly as possible.
She couldn't even bring herself to say that she believed she'd performed better than the girl who got the role.
"Goals begin with selfishness."
"They begin with wanting something because you want it."
"And once you have a goal, competition becomes inevitable."
"Because not everyone can have what they want."
"..."
"The same goes for independence. Independence begins the moment you refuse someone else's help. So tell me—when you reject another person's kindness, is that your good nature... or your darker nature?"
Confusion spread across Priya's face.
Everything her family had praised as virtue...
According to Yu Myeong, had actually originated from humanity's darker instincts.
Which meant...
Perhaps even her family had never truly understood what they called "Hartroit pride."
Perhaps they had only repeated it on the surface.
"Priya... I spent a very long time making my parents cry."
"You... made your parents cry?"
"Yes."
"To pursue my own selfish desires."
"It pains me that my ambitions caused the people around me so much hardship."
"But I don't regret it."
"If I'd given up acting..."
"...I never would have lived my own life."
Pain flickered across Yu Myeong's face.
It was an expression Priya had never seen before.
The quiet sorrow of someone who had confronted his own desires...
Chosen them despite their selfishness...
And accepted the consequences.
He wasn't speaking dramatically.
He was confessing something genuine.
Still...
One question remained.
"But even if my impulses come from darkness..."
"They aren't impulses that help me grow."
"They're... much uglier than that."
"For example..."
"You want to wrap your hands around someone's throat?"
Her breath caught.
"...Or beat someone until they're bloody?"
"...Or burn them alive?"
"..."
After a long hesitation...
She gave the tiniest nod.
Yu Myeong simply smiled.
"That's completely normal."
"Those are impulses ordinary people experience under stress all the time."
"...!"
"You can't control the impulse itself."
"You can't decide, Why am I thinking this? I shouldn't."
"No amount of determination changes that."
He was right.
No matter how desperately she'd tried...
The ugly thoughts had never stopped.
Every time they surfaced...
She had cried until morning, asking herself over and over...
Why am I like this?
"As long as we're human, every one of us lives with both good impulses and dark ones."
"Turning away from desire and pretending it doesn't exist isn't strength."
"Neither is blindly following it."
"Real strength comes from facing it..."
"...and controlling it."
She had been weak.
Not because those feelings existed.
Because she had spent her entire life running away from them.
"When those impulses appear..."
"Look directly at where they came from."
"Take them apart."
"Give yourself time to grieve over them."
"Only then can you choose."
"Will you release them?"
"Suppress them?"
"Or use them for something worthwhile?"
"...Use them?"
"Look at Hugo."
"He transformed his childish desire to shock people..."
"...and his hunger to stand out..."
"...into great art."
Yu Myeong laughed softly.
Priya remembered the jealousy she'd felt watching his performance earlier that day.
If...
Instead of ending with envy, resentment, and despair...
She used those feelings to improve her own acting...
Was that what he meant?
"If you can keep your darkness from consuming you..."
"If you can use it to discover yourself instead..."
"Then your pride won't come from belonging to the Hartroit family."
"It'll come from being..."
"...Priscilla Hartroit."
"A human being."
Pride wasn't something another person bestowed upon you.
It was something you created yourself.
Those words struck Priya like lightning.
"Hey! Magic Flute!"
"...Where did that nickname come from?"
Hugo grabbed Yu Myeong by the arm, calling him by yet another bizarre nickname.
By now, Yu Myeong had stopped being surprised.
But what did this one even mean?
"Back during the finalist assignment you kept drawing out everyone's potential—especially Kai's."
"And now you've done the same thing for Priya."
"You lure people along with your flute and lead them into the river."
"You're the Magic Flute!"
"...First of all, why are they rats?"
"And secondly, you're talking about The Pied Piper."
"Oh."
Hugo snapped his fingers.
"Right."
Rats...?
What a terrible analogy.
"But seriously."
"How did you do it?"
"Do what?"
"How'd you get Priya to make expressions like that?"
After that day...
Priya had changed dramatically.
The only reason it happened was because those expressions had always existed inside her.
The only thing that changed...
Was the lock she'd placed on them.
Opening a door she'd kept sealed for years wasn't easy.
But Pandora continuously echoed her own reality.
The play forced her to confront herself over and over again...
Until eventually...
She unlocked the door herself.
Which meant...
Half the credit belonged to Hugo.
Even so...
Yu Myeong had no intention of sharing Priya's personal story.
Nor did he intend to inflate Hugo's already considerable ego by telling him how instrumental he'd been.
Seeing Yu Myeong remain silent, Hugo asked again.
"So?"
"Can't you lure Marta with your flute too?"
"Peeeeeep."
"She's already ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) doing well enough."
"But maybe she'd suddenly transform like Priya."
"I only gave Priya a little push so she could overcome the obstacle she already had."
"Marta doesn't have that kind of problem."
She still hadn't reached the level Yu Myeong remembered from the original timeline.
But there was no reason to force anything.
He wasn't the director.
And someone already doing well didn't need unnecessary interference.
"You seem like the type who prefers people to discover things for themselves."
"So why are you always expecting me to do it?"
"I usually do."
"But not with you."
"You're just too unbelievable."
Making a flower beneath his chin with both hands, Hugo smiled brightly at him.
Yu Myeong grimaced.
"Do you know how much fun I've been having lately?"
"Seriously."
"How does an actor like you even exist?"
"Why didn't I find you sooner?"
"You're not secretly an alien, are you?"
"You only praise me with words."
"During rehearsal you're nothing but complaints."
"That's because every time you accomplish what I'm imagining..."
"...I immediately imagine something even harder."
"You're like an acting vending machine."
"Once this is over and you've made a movie with Kyler..."
"...want to come to France?"
"I'll pass."
Hugo visibly deflated.
Then he remembered why he'd called Yu Myeong over.
"We're moving onto the main stage for rehearsals starting tomorrow."
"Tell Priya and Marta."
"It got moved up?"
"Worked out well."
"Your team's rehearsal would've been chaotic otherwise."
Waving casually, Hugo walked away.
There were now...
Three days left until the performance.
Yu Seok looked deeply moved.
In his hand were two gold colored tickets.
Casting Boat Final Assignment — Golden Ticket (Staff Admission)
At moments like this...
He wanted to pat his past self on the back for recruiting Yu Myeong at the Entertainment Studies audition.
The premiere of Peter Pan.
The Casting Boat stage.
Soon enough...
He'd probably even have tickets for the live finale.
Considering how much these tickets were selling for on eBay...
And how impossible they were to obtain no matter how much money you offered...
They truly deserved to be called Golden Tickets.
Ordinarily, each actor received only one staff ticket.
The theater seated only five hundred people.
Yet Yu Seok had received Yu Myeong's ticket...
And Kai's as well.
He already knew exactly who would receive the second one.
If Hyo Jun were still here... I'd have taken him.
But Hyo Jun had packed his bags and left for France immediately after being eliminated from Casting Boat.
Sometimes Yu Seok still dreamed about their farewell.
The boy who had once been so unruly had bowed politely and said,
"I'm sorry for causing everyone so much trouble."
After the broadcast exposed Hyo Jun's reckless behavior...
Public opinion toward him had plummeted.
Even so...
Seeing the clarity in the boy's eyes before he left...
Yu Seok felt certain he would continue growing and eventually return.
To change someone that much...
Yu Seok himself had tried persuasion.
Begging.
Giving him space.
He'd nearly given up.
Yet Yu Myeong had accomplished what none of that could.
Only someone that serious about acting...
...could have reached him.
Ring—
The doorbell rang.
His guest had arrived.
Standing outside with an enormous telephoto camera slung over one shoulder...
Was a woman with a ponytail.
"So Jin."
"You're here."
"President..."
"This isn't... a dream, is it?"
Smiling, Yu Seok waved the two tickets in front of her.
Proof that it wasn't.
So Jin had decided to fly to America immediately after watching Yu Myeong follow her advice and make use of Bohyeong.
She'd thought,
This isn't the time to sit still.
Who knows whether this will be the last chance I ever have to watch my actor soar like this?
Even if there's nothing else I can do... I should at least record him while he's there.
Using nearly all of her vacation days in one go...
She had boarded the plane.
To Yu Seok...
Jeong So Jin was an admirable young woman.
Running an entertainment agency had exposed him to countless fan clubs.
But he had never seen one as passionate...
Yet as healthy...
As God Named.
At the center of it all stood its president—
Always composed.
Always disciplined in both speech and manner.
She had even been the first to propose creating an American fan site...
And the first to act on it.
"When I landed..."
"I turned on my phone..."
"Read your message..."
"I thought my heart was going to stop."
"Haha."
"Really?"
"But..."
"I feel like I'm getting special treatment..."
"Is this really okay...?"
Knowing exactly what kind of person So Jin was...
Yu Seok had deliberately waited until after her flight departed before texting her that she could attend the finalists' performance.
And, just as expected...
She hesitated.
"It's fine."
"I can't exactly hand staff tickets out to the fan club."
"And honestly..."
"It's better for the fan club if you go."
"You can tell everyone what the atmosphere was like."
"Write a report."
"Still..."
"So should I just throw these away?"
"The performance's tomorrow."
"I don't have anyone else to give them to."
"Gah..."
"No!"
"I mean—"
"Then I'll attend as God Named's special correspondent and report everything properly!"
"That camera isn't coming into the theater."
"Haha! Of course not!"
Only then did So Jin finally relax.
Clutching the tickets...
She began bouncing up and down with excitement.
The venue for the finalists' assignment...
Ivenia Theater.
A sea of people crowded the entrance that day.
There seemed to be more reporters and camera operators than audience members.
Which was only natural.
Today marked the first time footage from Casting Boat had ever been opened to the public.
People trusted what they saw on television.
Yet they also suspected the power of editing.
Were those breathtaking performances...
Those unforgettable moments...
Really as extraordinary as they appeared on screen?
Or had television exaggerated everything?
Today...
They intended to judge with their own eyes.
GO PRIYA—DAUGHTER OF HARTROIT, AMERICA'S CONSCIENCE!
ANTOINE, OUR CHARMING KING!
The contestants' fan clubs waved banners everywhere.
Naturally...
The largest group belonged to Yu Myeong.
The performance was originally scheduled for the theater's grand stage.
But temporary walls had reduced both the audience seating and the stage itself by nearly half.
Beyond those partitions...
Cameras and elaborate equipment filled every available space.
Crew members shouted as they hurried back and forth.
Although each performance was relatively short...
Four entirely different productions had to share the same stage.
Rolling stage platforms waited backstage in sequence.
Above them...
Far more lighting rigs than usual hung from the ceiling.
{Mmm... The air inside an old theater with real history tastes delicious, meow.}
"Haha."
"You'll have plenty to eat today."
{Yours tastes the best.}
{So make it count.}
Miho delivered her blunt remark...
Then vanished.
Yu Myeong smiled to himself.
Finally—
"Casting Boat viewers!"
"Who am I?"
"Jerry High!!"
"What was that?"
"I couldn't hear you."
"Jerry Low?"
"Jerry High!!!!"
"Jerry Middle?"
"Come on, don't change my surname."
"Everybody together!"
"Higher!"
"Jerry High!!!!!!!"
"That's better!"
"I'm Jerry High..."
"...your wonderful host for Casting Boat!"
The recording...
Began.