Chapter 1 Part 5: The Color of Despair is Beautiful

That Night

After working until 10 p.m., the park’s closing time—even for night operations—and spending quite a while removing his makeup, Yejun didn’t arrive back at his tiny one-room apartment until close to midnight.

Since he had to go to work starting tomorrow, he first filled out the résumé he’d been asked for.
Then, sitting on his bed, Yejun rolled his eyes around.

He was a stage actor.

In a few days, there would be a reading, and roles would be decided based on trial performances.
Those who prepared well would be given important roles, while those lacking preparation or talent would be assigned ordinary ones.

“Ha, this is driving me crazy.”

What had happened earlier came back to him.
He had only opened a book, and yet he’d been dragged to some strange place and trapped there for ten whole days.
The fact that only five minutes had passed in reality was impossible to believe.

Yejun’s gaze shifted to the play script book poking out of his bag.

He needed to read the script.

“But that’s a book too. How am I supposed to touch it when I’m this scared?”

A nightmare where he’d been trapped in a cramped room for ten days.
What if he opened the script and got sucked back into that damn dream again?

“Eh, no way.”

He must’ve just been exhausted and hallucinating.
There was no way it was real.

After hesitating a little, Yejun pulled the bundle of scripts out of the worn old bag he’d carried around since his college days.
Sitting cross-legged on the bed, resting his chin in his hand, he stared down at the script for a long time before squeezing his eyes shut and flipping the first page.

Whatever happens, happens.

He scrunched his face tight, then cautiously opened his eyes.

Ha, thank God.

There was no dark room.
No crying clown.
Just his small, old, but cozy room.

Yejun scratched his head.

“Whew… I guess I was just tired. I’ll read the script for thirty minutes and go to bed early.”

To be on-site at the amusement park by ten tomorrow, factoring in makeup time, he needed to clock in by nine.
That meant leaving home by at least eight.
Everything that had happened must’ve been because he was exhausted, so tonight he should sleep properly.

There was no way that clown would show up in his dreams, right?

***

“Jieun, be careful when you set that down. No, don’t do it yourself. Hey, Younghwan! You help her.”

“Yes, Director!”

At the same time, at Mae Theater.

Even though it was well past midnight, strike work—tearing down the stage set from the previous production—was in full swing.

Originally, Yejun and Junghwan were supposed to be helping as well.
But in small theater troupes, actors often handle dismantling sets, building new ones, or making props themselves.
Since the two of them were newcomers, they’d been excluded this time.

The director, moving plywood while smoking a pipe, noticed Writer Choi carefully placing a small prop clock into his bag.
In a troupe with such poor conditions, even props that were slightly damaged from use were repaired and stored so they could be reused.

“Writer Choi, you should just rest. You’ve got weak stamina.”

“Haha, everyone’s working this hard at this hour—how could I be the only one slacking off?”

“Don’t go catching another cold.”

“I’ll take it easy, Director.”

Around two in the morning, the troupe members were clearly starting to tire.
The director clapped his hands and spoke.

“Alright, that’s it for today! We’ll continue tomorrow. You all finish your part-time jobs around five p.m., right? Let’s meet again then and finish up. Call it a night. You’ve all got side gigs again tomorrow.”

Despite looking exhausted enough to have dark circles under their eyes, the troupe members cheerfully said their goodbyes and left.

Looking around the cluttered theater—filled with lighting equipment and stacks of plywood from the strike—the director approached Writer Choi, who was sitting at the very back of the audience seats, reviewing the script.

“How do you think role assignments will go? We can manage everything with our current numbers, right?”

“Of course. I planned it that way from the start.”

“What do you mean, from the start? We were short on people, so we recruited two more.”

“Come on, one person left, so you were going to hire one more—but both applicants were good, so you kept them.”

One of the Mae Theater members had left because they couldn’t endure their financial hardship anymore.
They’d held auditions to find a replacement, but unexpectedly, two promising candidates had shown up.

Between the two, the better one was unquestionably Ma Yejun.
Though still young, he was a trained major who’d belonged to a large agency and received long-term, systematic training, and his acting reflected that high level.

Junghwan’s acting wasn’t on Yejun’s level, but compared to the current members, he was roughly on par.
Finding actors of that caliber wasn’t as easy as one might think.
Large troupes had such talents come to them naturally, but small troupes struggled to recruit actors at all.

Flipping through the script with his chin propped in his hand, Writer Choi said,

“Let’s use two actresses for the ghost role. They’ll need to pop up everywhere—same makeup, appearing from the front and back of the stage. It’ll really scare the audience.”

“Hmm, sounds good. But doesn’t that leave one male actor unused? There are four roles, but we have five men.”

“We’ll need a stage director anyway.”

Horror plays had their own quirks.
Someone had to swing a mop with a wig attached over the audience’s heads in the dark, or suddenly grab someone’s ankle.
The actor who didn’t get cast would handle that role.

As for sound effects and lighting, the director or writer handled those personally.

The director plopped down next to Writer Choi.

“The role that could be considered the lead—that’s Jeong Seongryong, right?”

“Yes. He’s the main culprit behind the incident, and even after everyone else dies, he’s the last one left, dying in extreme terror.”

“Anyone you’ve got in mind?”

“Honestly… I’m not sure. Seongryong’s a villain, but as you know, our members all have pretty kind-looking faces.”

“What about the new guys?”

“Junghwan’s out. An actor’s external image matters too, and he looks exactly like a low-level office worker. No way he passes for a businessman.”

“And Yejun?”

“Well… his acting was good, but I want to see if he can handle this role at the casting audition. To be honest, his facial expressions are solid, but his vocal projection isn’t great. With that voice, his lines might not reach the back of the audience.”

“Hmm, true. Still, with looks like his, he’ll draw some crowds. Let’s try developing him. Alright, head on home.”

“Yes, Director. See you tomorrow.”

The next day.

After sleeping more than seven hours and coming to work refreshed, Yejun handed his résumé to the team leader.
Then, together with Junghwan, he sat in the same dressing room as yesterday, finished his clown makeup, and headed out into the amusement park.

Thankfully, the clown hadn’t appeared in his dreams.

In the morning, there were lots of group visits from elementary school and kindergarten kids.
Usually, they came on school or kindergarten outings, and they all left between two and three in the afternoon.

The clowns’ first task was to entertain these children.
At first, kids who toddled along holding onto the backpack of the child in front were scared of the clowns, but once the clowns started acting silly, they soon burst into bright smiles.

Experienced Junghwan used fart jokes—the kids’ favorite—sticking out his butt and pressing his palm under his armpit to make fart sounds, then pretending the smell was awful.

“Kyahaha! Kyahaha!”

The children clapped and laughed.
Yejun honestly had no idea why kids loved fart jokes so much.

Joining in with the fart performance on the spot, Yejun worked hard through the morning before heading to lunch.
The amusement park staff cafeteria was insanely crowded.

After getting his food and finding a seat, Junghwan said,

“Did you know there are over three thousand part-time workers at this park?”

“Really?”

“Each ride has at least two or three people, right? Since they’re part-time, there are usually six per ride.”

“Oh, true.”

“Plus the cleaning staff and food vendors are all part-timers. And those foreigners over there in makeup—they’re festival dancers.”

“They look Russian. Are they real dance majors?”

“Eh, not all of them. Most came for stuff like underwear modeling and do this as a side job.”

Wow… foreigners work hard too.

While eating and watching the foreign dancers, Yejun suddenly saw one female dancer burst into tears.
The people around her patted her shoulders to comfort her, while she carefully dabbed her eyes with a tissue so her makeup wouldn’t smudge.

He didn’t know what had happened, but since she was crying while looking at her phone, it seemed something had gone wrong with her family back home.

Then a staff member with a microphone entered and announced,

“Festival prep begins now!”

The dancers eating jumped up in a rush.
Even the dancer who’d been crying hurried to her feet.

That dancer would go out to the festival grounds and smile and dance again.
Even if she was sad, even if her emotions were dried up, she’d smile and perform cheerfully.

Yejun had heard that all performers—including variety entertainers—experienced this at least once.
He hadn’t yet.

After finishing his meal, Junghwan stood up and said,

“I’m going for a smoke.”

“Okay, hyung.”

“You gonna stay in the break room after you finish?”

“Yeah, I’m going to look over the script.”

“Don’t get too absorbed like yesterday.”

“Haha, I think I was just tired yesterday. Don’t worry.”

Once Junghwan went back out to the park, he wouldn’t be able to return for at least two hours, so he chain-smoked through every break.
It felt like a shackle.
As a non-smoker, Yejun couldn’t understand it at all.

After eating alone and clearing his table, Yejun headed to the staff break room.
Unlike yesterday, quite a few employees were resting there today.
Some stared blankly into space, others chatted in small groups.

Passing by them, Yejun sat in the farthest corner and pulled out the script.

He’d already completely forgotten about yesterday.
When he’d checked at home, it had clearly been a hallucination.
And today, it wasn’t even that book—it was the same script he’d opened yesterday without anything happening.
It should be fine.

“Today, I should look at #A-89, right?”

Twenty minutes until the end of break.
He planned to use the time efficiently for imagination training.

But the moment he opened the script, Yejun’s face twisted into a deep scowl.

“Hey—what the hell!!!”

It was that same dark room.
That same clown from yesterday.
That creepy bastard was tilting his head and staring at him again.

“Why!! I opened the script, not that book yesterday, you asshole!”

This was insane.

Don’t tell me that behind the door he makes by snapping his fingers, that damn clown doll is sitting there again?
Do I really have to do that boring vocal exercise ten thousand times over ten days to escape again?
Why the hell is this happening to me?

The clown slowly raised his white-gloved finger.
Yejun wanted nothing more than to snap it in half.

– Snap!

The clown’s fingers snapped, and the door appeared again.

Yejun bit his lip.

Damn it… I can’t just not read the script, so what the hell am I supposed to do?

Is it because I’m opening it at the amusement park?

He’d gained one small piece of information, but right now, getting out of here came first.
Even if only five minutes passed in reality, the time he experienced was ten whole days.

“If I have to do it anyway, I’ll finish it quickly.”

Gripping the doorknob tightly, Yejun opened the door, debating whether to kick the clown doll that would appear.
But instead, he let out a deflated sound.

“Huh?”

Where is this?
This isn’t the doll room?