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Chapter 04
It felt like her breath was being squeezed out of her.
People often said that when you witness talent you can never surpass, you feel an overwhelming pressure like this.
In all her decades-long acting career, Sung Hyesim had never once felt that way toward a fellow actor.
There were plenty of good actors around her, but they were all at a similar level to hers. After all, she herself had already reached the pinnacle of acting.
And yet—
‘What… was that just now?’
She was barely twenty. A friend’s niece. A complete beginner, with no experience as a child actress.
And yet, Sung Hyesim had been utterly overwhelmed by Joo Saei’s expression.
Saei hadn’t even spoken a single line, but Hyesim’s decades of refined acting instinct had reacted instantly.
‘That was Dohun.’
Among the protagonist’s family members, Yeon Dohun, the “son,” was someone who had always ranked first in his class and had entered a prestigious university.
However, all of that had been the result of his mother’s coercion.
Having lived without willpower of his own, Dohun locked himself in his room after being accepted into college.
But neither the house nor his tiny bedroom gave him any sense of freedom.
In the end, the day before his high school graduation ceremony, he took his own life.
That was the past arc.
After that came the main story of Your Blue Name: a mother who neglected her daughter for three years after losing her son, and a daughter who grew up bravely on her own.
Hyesim had chosen the scene where the son, facing death, confronts his mother for the first and last time—purely to test Saei.
Episode 1’s script focused on the protagonists’ childhood.
She assumed Saei would focus only on the female lead’s lines, since they were the same gender and had the most screen time.
So she had thrown in an unexpected curveball.
“Mom’s at fault… It’s all my fault. Please open the door, okay? My son…”
When she delivered her lines, handled her gaze, and examined Saei’s expression—
Her pale face, the whites of her eyes instantly turning red.
Her pupils filled with resentment and emptiness.
Her slightly trembling eyelids and tightly pressed lips, as she prepared for her first rebellion.
‘A child who carries out the cruelest revenge with the gentlest heart.’
A son who hated the mother who had controlled his life.
He resolved to rebel through death, yet pitied the mother who would grieve for him. In the end, he couldn’t stop himself from feeling compassion for her.
In Hyesim’s eyes, Saei had become Dohun himself.
That was why her acting had faltered.
‘I made a mistake. Focus again…’
Just as she tried to regain her composure, Saei spoke.
“…Are you okay?”
“Ah, I’m sorry. I got distracted for a moment.”
Saei seemed to notice immediately that Hyesim had wavered.
Hyesim couldn’t control the trembling at the corners of her lips.
‘She can switch off her emotions like turning off a power button? And she noticed my acting faltered in that short time?’
Ah, she wanted her.
Her long-dormant passion for acting was reigniting.
‘It’s too early. She might break down once we get into real dialogue…’
Even as she warned herself not to get her hopes up, her heart kept pounding.
“Shall we try again? From the part where it moves into Dohun’s monologue.”
With that signal, Hyesim resumed reading.
“Don’t you care at all about how upset I am? Open the door. Talk to me. Huh? Dohun! Yeon Dohun!”
This wasn’t a filming set.
Here, the only thing an actor could rely on was their own voice.
“You got into Daehan University, so what’s the problem? Why are you ruining your mother’s life for the first time ever?!”
Hyesim finished her line.
Though she had only read it, she could vividly picture a mother glaring at the door, shaking the handle desperately.
Now it was Saei’s turn.
“…Did I really ruin your life, Mom?”
A voice different from Saei’s own—filled with boyish youth—dominated the space.
Dohun, stepping out of his room in simple clothes, appeared before their eyes.
“You say what’s the problem… Of course it’s not a problem for you. It’s the university you wanted so badly. But Mom… to say I ruined your life… Did you ever give me a single choice?”
Saei, now Dohun, let out a fragile breath and narrowed her eyes, as if even this conversation was unbearable.
Her expression shifted like flowing water—every second, every fraction of a second.
“I did everything you told me to. Because you smiled when I did well. And even that smile was rare. After Dad died, you—Mom, you—!”
Her voice changed.
A child who had never known how to get angry finally screamed, overwhelmed.
With that wounded expression, a rough voice burst out.
Though emotional, her pronunciation was clear, echoing through the empty atrium.
A brief silence.
Then—
“You only smiled… on the days I brought home my report card.”
Her voice softened again.
Her line overlapped with her breath, leaving the listener hollow.
“Dohun, I only did it because I wanted you to succeed—”
“Do you think I’ll succeed living like this?”
He cut her off mockingly.
“Everything’s wrong now. When you smiled, I smiled too… But living feels like a wrong answer. Your smile. The schedule you planned for me. And even me—thinking of your smiling face first when I saw I passed…”
“…”
“I’m just… sick of everything now.”
His voice, drained of emotion, was flat.
This was the moment Dohun truly decided to end it.
‘No…’
Hyesim’s lips trembled.
According to the script, the scene should end with the humiliated mother driving her son out.
But—
‘I want to hold him…’
He looked too fragile.
She wanted to hug him, to stop him from leaving.
Even knowing the script, she felt certain she would never see him again.
She hesitated.
If this were real filming, the director would have called “NG.”
Silence stretched.
Just as she finally gathered herself to speak—
“…I’ll go for a walk. I’m sorry for getting angry, Mom.”
In a flat tone, Dohun spoke a line that wasn’t in the script.
An ad-lib.
“Let’s eat dinner together later.”
His voice trembled at the end.
He knew better than anyone he wouldn’t return.
Because he was lying, his kind eyes wavered.
The end of the scene.
Though neither had moved, Dohun leaving the house lingered in her vision.
“…Hoo.”
Saei exhaled and returned to her usual self.
The lifeless face of Dohun faded, replaced by color.
Saei released a long breath toward the floor.
The atrium, once filled with their voices, was now suffocatingly silent.
After settling her emotions, she slowly lifted her head.
Across from her, Sung Hyesim was staring at her intensely.
Her stiff expression revealed nothing.
‘Did I overdo it?’
She had improvised because Hyesim didn’t end the scene.
Was the ad-lib wrong?
In her previous life, she had been praised highly.
But this time, she didn’t know what she would hear.
Nervously, Saei looked at her aunt.
Her aunt looked just as stunned.
‘This is bad… I think I messed up.’
As Saei opened her mouth to apologize—
“No…”
Hyesim spoke first.
“That last line—you made it up, didn’t you?”
“Yes! It felt like things were going differently from the script…”
“Dohun dies after this. So why did he say ‘let’s eat together later’?”
She kept questioning.
Watching Saei think, Hyesim raised her eyebrow.
“Before you spoke, I looked at your expression. It wasn’t like the stage direction said—being humiliated and angry…”
“Different?”
“You looked like you were about to cry and hug him. Your ‘mother’ did. Seeing that, I thought Dohun would want to comfort her, at least in that moment.”
Hyesim’s face twisted strangely as she listened.
“Dohun resents his controlling mother, but he also feels sorry for her. That’s why he couldn’t completely ignore her until the end.”
Saei bit her lip, waiting.
“Hmm…”
After trailing off, Hyesim suddenly rummaged through her handbag.
Then, with a gentle smile, she held something out.
“Saei, could you give me your phone number?”
It was her phone.
