Superstar From Age 0

Chapter 558:

Chapter 558

The next scene was filmed in the kitchen.

The kitchen of this mansion had a large refrigerator and other modern decorations, so they had to make a new one from scratch. 

They decorated the largest room on the first floor as the kitchen.

“It looks great.”

“Indeed.”

The kitchen looked like it was from a hundred years ago, where someone could come out and cook at any moment. 

The neatly arranged dishes and utensils, the counter and table that reached the waist, and the sunlight and airy curtains that came through the window matched well.

“Let’s start filming.”

Kim Se-yeon shouted, and Hwang Do-yoon and Jung Eun-mi, who had finished their makeup, moved to their positions.

***

“I can’t be friends with him like this…”

Min-han, who came out of the young master’s room with a tray (he didn’t forget to close the door tightly), rubbed his neck.

It was his second day in the mansion.

Min-han only delivered meals to the young master every mealtime, and helped Mr. Lee with the chores of the mansion for the rest of the time.

Whenever he brought or picked up the food, the young master was lying on the bed, showing only his back. This morning, he looked like he was really dead, so Min-han unknowingly listened to his breathing quietly.

He sighed and carried the tray down the wooden stairs. He saw the bowl with food in it. He wondered if he had no intention of living, as the food was half-empty, and the remains of the food were messy like a five-year-old had eaten it.

“Is his arm still hurting?”

He guessed that the wound from self-harm had not healed yet, as there was a fork instead of chopsticks. He had slammed the table hard enough to bleed yesterday, so he couldn’t have healed.

“I don’t care as long as I get paid, but… is this okay?”

The kitchen of the mansion.

As he handed over the tray, Min-han asked with a worried expression. Mr. Lee looked a bit sorry.

“The young master… he hasn’t sorted out his feelings yet. I heard he really loved painting. He’s been drawing since he was young. He got a lot of praise, too.”

“Really?”

Min-han rolled his eyes.

No matter how much he loved painting, he wondered if it was worth hurting himself and bleeding just because he couldn’t draw anymore.

‘Some people are struggling to make a living…’

He saw Mr. Lee clearing the dishes on the tray.

Even if he got hurt, he had people who cared for him and a family who sent him to a nursing home for rehabilitation. He wondered if the young master of the rich house had never experienced any hardship beyond that.

‘What if I got hit by a carriage…’

He doubted if he could even get proper treatment, let alone nursing for rehabilitation.

For a long time Min-han has been in a depression that had taken him by the ankles and not let go. He shook his head pushing away the depressed thoughts.

“He’s still young, so take good care of him, Min-han.”

“Yes, I understand. Don’t worry!”

‘I don’t understand, but well, there are different kinds of people in the world.’

Min-han shrugged his shoulders and walked to do the work that Mr. Lee had entrusted him with.

***

Today was a night shoot.

It was night, but since it was winter, the sun set around 6 p.m., so they just rested a bit after dinner and then started filming. 

Still, Hwang Ji-yoon said it was okay for only some of the [Fire] team members to participate, but since the main character of the scene they were filming today was the main character, everyone participated without missing a single person.

“I knew it would be like this every time Seo-jun filmed…”

Kim Se-yeon laughed at Hwang Ji-yoon’s words. Kim Se-yeon also thought so.

The [Fire] team, who had dinner and rested for a while, walked together on the street where the streetlights were sparse. It was cold at night as the temperature dropped, but they didn’t stop talking.

“When will it snow?”

“The weather forecast says it will snow next week.”

Seo-jun answered the second-year acting student’s words.

Snow was the most important element in [Fire], so they checked the weather every day.

“Can we trust the weather forecast?”

The first-year student’s murmur made the surrounding students chuckle. It was not one or two times that they had gone out trusting the weather forecast and came back soaked in the rain.

“Se-ah, can you go too? Isn’t it your bedtime?”

Kwon Se-ah, the only minor on the [Fire] team, who was treated like a younger sibling by the team members, made a sullen face at the playful words of the art team member.

“It’s not even 10 o’clock yet. And where are the high school students who sleep at this time. Noona. Even middle school students don’t go to bed this early.”

“Haha. I’m kidding. Kidding.”

As they chatted, they arrived at the mansion.

It was a bit creepy to see it at night, even though they had left the lights on on the first floor.

“Should we try courage training here later?”

Hwang Do-yoon’s words brought out small screams, and some students laughed happily.

“That sounds good! We have the art team and the props team, so we can make it high-quality.”

“The costumes are also good, since we have hanbok.”

“That would be fun! We have actors who can act well, too.”

As they watched some students turn pale, the students who laughed cheerfully heard a voice say.

“Can I do the ghost acting then?”

It was Seo-jun.

He looked like he really wanted to do it, his eyes sparkling. The students who turned pale and the students who laughed cheerfully before froze.

‘…Actor Lee Seo-jun is going to do ghost acting?’

What if an actor who can act realistically shows his acting right in front of them? And as a ghost during courage training.

“Can I faint now?”

It was dizzying just to imagine it.

“I’m already dead.”

“I have to write that the culprit is Lee Seo-jun…”

The students huddled together and shivered, and the students who were full of teasing thoughts also swallowed dryly at the sudden rise in the difficulty of courage training.

“Uh…”

Hwang Do-yoon, who brought up the courage training first, turned his eyes away from Seo-jun, who was sparkling, and opened his mouth with a trembling voice.

He had been practicing with him for a month, so he could imagine how scary Seo-jun’s acting would be. He felt like sweat was dripping from his whole body.

“Let’s, let’s film!? We don’t have time to play! Let’s go and film!”

“Filming! Filming!”

“Waaaaah!”

As they ran away without looking back, Seo-jun sighed with disappointment.

The filming took place on the second floor.

They had prepared everything in advance, so they could start filming as soon as the actors finished their makeup.

Soon, Seo-jun and Hwang Do-yoon, who were going to appear in this scene, changed their clothes and went up to the second floor.

“Let’s start filming!”

Hwang Ji-yoon raised her voice, and the actors and team members moved to their positions and checked that the camera was working properly.

“Ready,”

Seo-jun blinked his eyes.

“Action!”

The unknown painter, who was called the young master in this mansion, looked out the window with a strange expression on his face. The moonlight shone through the glass.

***

Thump.

Min-han, who was lying on his bed in his room, opened his eyes at the faint sound.

He had a keen sense of hearing at night, but he also wasn’t used to sleeping on a soft bed for the first time in his life, after sleeping on a hard floor until now.

Thump. Thump.

He got up quietly from his bed and headed towards the door as the sound came again. It was coming from the hallway. Could it be Mr. Lee or Madam Go, the old couple who lived on the first floor? No, they had no reason to come up in the middle of the night.

Then, was it a thief?

Or maybe it was the young master, who shared the same floor with him.

He suddenly remembered the blood-stained palm. Was he hurting himself again?

That’s why his room was on the second floor, he thought, as he opened the door and stepped out. He walked carefully, making sure not to make any noise, towards the living room. It was the living room on the second floor, between his room on the left and the young master’s room on the right, that was visible as soon as he climbed the stairs.

It was a place with large windows and curtains, unlike the other rooms.

Under the curtains that were drawn back, letting in the moonlight from outside, a man in Western clothes was standing. He was standing very still.

Min-han hid his body behind the wall and held his breath as he looked at the young master. Unlike the first time they met, when he was running wild, he was looking outside with a peculiar expression on his face. He wondered if he had some kind of sleep disorder.

He was looking without making any sound, and then the young master slowly raised both his hands. He was about to strike again, and Min-han was about to flinch and run towards him, when,

…!

He swallowed the sigh that was about to come out.

The young master’s hands, which had reached his chest, were trembling.

He looked down at his shaking hands with a calm expression, and then he clenched his teeth. His face was wrinkled, and his veins were visible on his neck as he put strength into his arms and his whole body.

But his arms and hands remained the same.

They seemed to be shaking against his will, as if someone else was controlling them. The tremor was more severe than that of an old man in the village.

He understood why he couldn’t paint, why there was a fork on the tray. With those hands, the young master could barely manage his daily life.

Min-han suddenly remembered when the young master had hurt himself. When he had grabbed his hand, the shaking arms were not because of the pain, but because he had always had that symptom, Min-han thought.

The young master was trying to control the tremor by clenching and unclenching his hands, while Min-han was thinking. It wasn’t the first time he had done that.

Maybe he had been trying and trying like that in his dark room, enduring and enduring, until he couldn’t bear it anymore and his feelings manifested as self-harm.

Min-han looked down at the floor.

He felt uncomfortable when he sometimes had petty thoughts of envy and jealousy towards the young master, who was different from him, who had grown up with a lot of love in a rich family. But he didn’t feel good when he saw him like that.

“…Huuu…”

Min-han lifted his head. And he stared blankly.

The young master was crying.

He wrapped his trembling hands carefully and preciously, and pressed them against his forehead as if praying, and he sobbed and whimpered without making any proper sound.

His face was distorted, and tears fell, drop by drop.

Each drop of tears seemed to be full of regret for the paintings he couldn’t let go of, he didn’t want to lose.

In the midst of that desperate sorrow, his hands and arms were still shaking uncontrollably. He was so sad and sorry that he eventually hugged his hands and collapsed. And he curled up his body and quietly shook his shoulders, crying miserably, but quietly.

He made his body round to protect his hands, and Min-han felt as if he had seen something he shouldn’t have seen, looking at the young master’s back.

***

The art team and Se-ah quietly watched him, and unconsciously touched their own hands.

No matter what profession it was, especially art and music, hands were important. They sometimes wondered if they should protect their hands first when an accident happened.

That’s why they felt the young master’s heart more acutely, to the point of tears. He was an unknown painter.

Seo-jun’s poignant acting also contributed to that. They were worried that it would be hard to get out of it if he was so immersed.

“Cut! Okay!”

Contrary to their worries, Seo-jun got up with a bright face as if he had never cried, at Hwang Ji-yoon’s shout. His shaking hands had stopped, and his expression was cheerful. Only his reddened eyes and the remaining tear marks told him that Seo-jun had cried a little while ago.

“How was it?”

“It was great! Come and see.”

Seo-jun smiled brightly at Hwang Ji-yoon’s words, and he looked completely different from the ‘young master’ who had cried sadly. 

The students and Kim Sung-sik and Jung Eun-mi, who were watching, couldn’t help but exclaim.