It wasn’t the first time I’d experienced everyone in the world acting like they wanted to devour me.
The pandemic that swept across the globe killed a lot of people, killed free trade, killed tolerance, and killed the film industry too.
The film industry is sustained by the cycle of Director & Writer – Production & Distribution – Theaters. If even one of the three collapses, it’s fatal. The theaters collapsed.
People stopped going to theaters out of fear of the plague. To survive, theaters raised ticket prices. As a result audiences only chose “safe bets” when picking movies.
Result: Everything withered except for mediocre films.
To put it more bluntly, it was totally fucked.
Even if you worked hard to make a film, people wouldn’t watch it. Since there was no profit, distribution companies shelved films, waiting for the day a hero would ride in on a white horse to save them.
If I got caught by them, I could end up in a terrible situation.
I flinched as I felt someone grab my shoulder from behind.
Before the unpleasant sensation could fade, it spoke to me.
“Excuse me, do you need some help?”
Of all people, it had to be a man.
Gripping my trembling shoulder tightly, I answered in the softest, kindest, and most unassuming voice I could muster.
I prayed that there wouldn’t be a “but” following that, but, as always, the cold and indifferent world did not grant my wish.
“But still, I’ll walk you home. We’re neighbors, after all!”
If I rejected the predator’s kindness any further, it might cause offense. And a visually impaired person cannot stand against a sighted one. I knew that all too well.
“Thank you. You’re very kind.”
“Oh, don’t mention it. Which unit are you in?”
In exchange for providing him with a sense of moral superiority, I arrived at my home, which I could have reached perfectly fine on my own.
“Here we are. You’re home.”
“Ah, thank you. Goodbye.”
“Haha, no problem. Have a good day.”
It, the one that could bite and devour me at any moment, left.
I listened closely to its footsteps, and only when I was sure it had completely gone did I proceed with my next action.
I headed not to unit 1205, but to the door of unit 1204.
Since someone might watch me input the door lock code, I quickly pulled out my key card from my wallet.
Even in this moment, the tension didn’t dissipate.
That corner of the hallway!
From the corner, where I thought it had disappeared, it was peeking out, watching me.
Were the fading footsteps just a trick to deceive me?
Was it planning to rush in and tear apart my insides the moment I opened the door?
I couldn’t tell where it was, whether it was staring at me, or whether it was all real or just my imagination.
Darkness triggers fear in humans.
Shivering in that darkness, I opened the door and entered the house.
I still couldn’t let my guard down.
While I was at school, they could have snuck into my home.
Clutching a safety alarm in one hand, I searched every corner of the house with my cane and echolocation.
Only after confirming that it wasn’t in my home did I collapse onto my bed.
Surviving was this difficult.
In reality, Kim Byul has poor eyesight.
It’s not so bad that she absolutely has to wear glasses, but her vision isn’t good enough that she can go without them either.
The reason the people around her don’t know about her poor eyesight is simple: she’s meticulously hidden it.
Her vision is bad enough that she can’t read a script with her bare eyes, but she wears corrective contact lenses when out in public.
It wasn’t because of some celebrity mindset that she always had to show her most beautiful self to those who could cast her… rather, it was the complete opposite.
She was embarrassed to wear glasses!
There wasn’t any profound reason behind it. It just was. The part of Kim Byul that wasn’t made up of the 90% that was a celebrity, but the 10% that was a girl, was asserting itself for once.
If we were to forcibly find a cold and rational reason, we could say it’s because of her mom.
Kim Byul’s mother often (actually, quite frequently) acted as if she were not a mother but a senior actress. Once, a long time ago, she looked at Kim Byul wearing glasses and said, “Glasses don’t suit your face, so try not to wear them unless you have to.”
Even a hedgehog finds its own baby cute, but her mother was worse than a hedgehog!
Whether that memory still lingered deeply or whether Kim Byul herself felt the same way when she looked in the mirror, in any case, Kim Byul never wore glasses in front of others.
She only wore glasses after taking out her lenses when she studied scripts alone in her room, and today was one of those days. The feel of the glasses, which she hadn’t worn in a while, felt awkward.
After adjusting her glasses unnecessarily, Kim Byul continued to dive into the script.
The protagonist of the film ‘Sound’ is blind.
A person who lost their sight later in life.
She is highly cautious, polite, and superficial, and she goes to high school.
She has a quirk of treating other people like zombies.
All in all, a complex character.
Just from these keywords, Kim Byul could tell that this character was someone haunted by past wounds and trauma.
If she were just a viewer, she might have thought, “Ah, I see,” and moved on. But Kim Byul was an actor, not someone who passively received information but someone who had to convey it.
Thus, she had to go one step further and concretize this character. That required deep contemplation.
To portray this character more vividly on the silver screen…
But she couldn’t focus well.
Because in this character, she caught a glimpse of something all too familiar.
Deficiency, trauma, obsession with survival…
“Isn’t this the kind of thing he likes too much…?”
Of course, it was Moon In.
Kim Byul giggled mischievously.
Somehow, as the script began to feel more familiar, the saying “speak of the tiger, and it appears” came true. A call came from the tiger himself.
“Hey-you, non-friend.”
-Senior Kim, can we meet for a bit?
With a slightly bittersweet smile, Kim Byul took off her glasses.