I Returned as a High School Girl

Chapter 173: Need for Therapy (1)

There were only three days left until the production of Shuttered?was wrapped up. The outdoor shoots taking place at the shuttered hospital had ended a week ago, so Kang Ra-Eun couldn’t be more relieved to know that she wouldn’t have to go inside that hospital ever again. The first thing that she thought was that she had survived. However, it was still too early to let her guard down since the shoots were not over yet.

Ra-Eun looked through her script in the waiting room after getting her make-up done. She had been focusing on the script without realizing it despite being in the dreary atmosphere of the set.

The university students had visited a shuttered hospital for a test of courage, but they began to die one by one. There were now only two survivors among the students who had participated in the test of courage; they were the main characters Hwang Tae-Yeong and Song Hye-Mi, played by Ra-Eun and Seo Tae-Yeon respectively.

Song Hye-Mi was the daughter of a shamaness. All the two actresses needed to do now was to act out the scene where they exorcized the wraith with the charm that Hye-Mi’s mother had given them. The scene did not involve just throwing the charm at the wraith, but for them to run away from the wraith until Hye-Mi used the charm as a last resort right when their backs were against the wall.

The problem was with the first portion of the scene, running away from the wraith.

Ra-Eun thought as she read through the script, ‘I guess I’ll be doing lots of running today.’

It had been a while since she needed to use her athletic skills in a shoot, which she rather preferred.

Director Choi called Ra-Eun and Tae-Yeon over.

“I’ll show you the runaway route, so make sure you memorize it.”

“Understood.”

“We’re gonna be using as much of the space as possible, so you’re gonna have to memorize a lot. Will you both be okay with that?”

Tae-Yeon confidently answered the worried Director Choi, “Memorizing is our job, so you don’t have to be so worried, Director.”

Tae-Yeon was exactly right. One of an actor’s most basic jobs was memorizing a script. There was no way one could act if they didn’t even know their lines. Ra-Eun had just as good of a memory as Tae-Yeon; otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to put any of her memories of the future to good use in her current life.

Director Choi went through the runaway route with her two reliable actresses.

“The camera is going to follow you from here, around the corner there, and then straight down the hallway here. All you two need to do is to run along that route. Seong-Yoon will be chasing you from behind.”

Do Seong-Yoon was the actress who played the wraith in Shuttered. She popped out of nowhere fully dressed up as a ghost once her name was called.

“Did you call me?”

Ra-Eun’s shoulders strongly flinched from her surprise appearance.

‘Fuck! You almost scared me to death!’

From the opening of Shuttered’s production up until now, Ra-Eun had never once seen Seong-Yoon’s bare face. She had only seen her in her ghost make-up and attire, so Ra-Eun’s heart beat like crazy whenever she saw her. Completely unaware of that, Seong-Yoon had a quick Q&A session with Director Choi before the shoot that would begin in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, Tae-Yeon directed Ra-Eun to the stairs.

“You should be careful when you go down these stairs, Ra-Eun. They’re a lot steeper than I’d expected.”

“I’ll bear that in mind, sunbae.”

It was important to immerse oneself in their performance, but the most important thing was to stay safe. It would be a massive problem if she got hurt when the production wrap-up was right around the corner.

The actors went through a rehearsal on the route that Director Choi had instructed them on before the cameras rolled. It seemed like preparations had been completed.

“Let’s get rolling,” Director Choi remarked.

“Okay!”

The actors and staff members got into their respective positions.

“Okay, okay! Let’s do our best until the very end! Roll cameras! Ready, action!”

The climax of the film Shuttered?was finally upon them. Ra-Eun and Tae-Yeon fled from Seong-Yoon and her highly-realistic ghost performance.

“Hurry, Hye-Mi!” Ra-Eun exclaimed as she reached out to grab Tae-Yeon’s hand.

Song Hye-Mi, played by Tae-Yeon, was written to have low stamina unlike Hwang Tae-Yeong’s character played by Ra-Eun. They ran from the ghost while panting heavily.

Thud!

Tae-Yeon lost strength in her legs and fell on the hallway. However, it was not an accident since it had been written in the script.

“Hye-Mi!” Ra-Eun exclaimed while expressing surprise as per the script.

The wraith was getting closer and closer. Just then, Ra-Eun snatched the necklace that Tae-Yeon was holding, lifted it up high and shouted at the wraith chasing after them.

“This is what you want, isn’t it?!”

The wraith turned its gaze on Ra-Eun.

Tae-Yeon exclaimed in confusion at Ra-Eun, who was willingly playing the bait, “Tae-Yeong! What are you...”

“The charm that your mother gave you is in the club room, right? Go get it while I lure that thing away. Hurry!”

“O-Okay!”

.

They would both die at this rate, so Tae-Yeong was forced to act as the bait. Ra-Eun zealously ran through the hallway to get away from the ghost. The stairs that Tae-Yeon had warned her about had come up. According to the script, she just needed to quickly walk down the stairs. However, she did not want to do that.

‘That would look too lame.’

Ra-Eun decided to make use of one of her special skills. She grabbed hold of the handrails and flung herself down.

“Huhhh...?”

The staff members’ eyes popped out. They almost exclaimed to watch out, but...

Boom—!

Ra-Eun landed so safely on the ground that it made their worries meaningless. Even Seong-Yoon was momentarily bewildered because she had not expected Ra-Eun to jump down the stairs instead of walking down. If her face had been in frame, it would have resulted in an NG cut.

The stunt had been unlike what a female protagonist being chased by a ghost would do, but it was within the bounds of acceptance since the character Hwang Tae-Yeong had been a high school track & field athlete.

Director Choi gave the signal to continue rolling. As the ghost chase continued for a while longer, Ra-Eun met back up with Tae-Yeon.

“Take it!”

Tae-Yeon got the necklace from Ra-Eun and put it on the charm that she had brought from the club room. The wraith screeched in pain. Then, Director Choi gave the OK signal.

“Great work, everyone! More importantly, are you okay, Ra-Eun? You’re not hurt anywhere, are you?”

“I’m fine, Director.”

Such a stunt was a piece of cake for Ra-Eun, but the production team did not know that. Their hearts had dropped as they watched Ra-Eun hurl herself over the handrails down to the floor below.

“Ad libbing is fine, but try to keep it safe. I thought I was gonna have a heart attack just watching it,” Director Choi expressed.

Ra-Eun was the one who got chased by the ghost, but Director Choi had more cold sweats than her.

Ra-Eun replied with a smile, “I’ll try.”

***

Ra-Eun headed to the afterparty venue after the production had been wrapped up.

‘It’s finally over!’

Ra-Eun felt like she was soaring through the skies. She had thought at first that there was no need to be scared since it was only a film shoot, but things had gone far past her expectations. There had been times during the shoot when it had been far scarier than simply watching the film.

‘Especially the shoots at the shuttered hospital.’

She still got the shivers whenever she thought back to those outdoor shoots. However, there was no need to worry now that it was all over. She arrived at the afterparty venue on cloud nine, but she unconsciously frowned as soon as she stepped in. A faint dry ice fog arose from the ground, and the venue was illuminated in red.

“What is all this, Miss Manager?” Ra-Eun asked.

She couldn’t help but to ask. This place was obviously not a normal buffet restaurant. Rather, it was closer to a haunted house.

Shin Yu-Bin answered with a bitter smile, “Director Choi was apparently insisting on decorating the interior like this since this was an afterparty for a horror film.”

“...”

Ra-Eun was lost for words. She had thought that she had finally escaped from the horror, but the film haunted her until the very bitter end. Part-timers were walking around the restaurant dressed up as ghosts.

‘I’ll applaud the effort, if nothing else.’

She was speechless in terms of the interior design, but she at least congratulated the director, staff members and her fellow cast members on their hard work since this was an afterparty. Just then, Ra-Eun noticed an unfamiliar woman standing next to Jin Seo-Yeong.

‘Who’s that?’

There was no one like that among the cast members. As Ra-Eun was wondering if she was from the lighting team, prop team, or any of the other staff members, Seo-Yeong noticed her and smiled brightly.

“Thank you for your hard work, sunbae! Oh, and I enjoyed your performance during that last scene so much!” she expressed.

“Thank you. But who might be... the lady next to you?” Ra-Eun asked.

Her attention was focused on the woman next to Seo-Yeong. The woman introduced herself while smiling awkwardly.

“I’m Seong-Yoon, sunbae.”

“Miss Do Seong-Yoon?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

This was Ra-Eun’s first time seeing Seong-Yoon’s bare face. She had been extremely scary while dressed up as a ghost, but she had an unexpectedly simple and innocent face underneath the make-up. Ra-Eun had once again come to realize the greatness of special make-up.

“I’m sorry for jumpscaring you all this time, sunbae,” Seong-Yoon stated.

“No, it's okay. After all, it was your job.”

Ra-Eun couldn’t count the number of times that she had almost fainted from Seong-Yoon’s goosebump-inducing realistic performance.

‘I’ll never star in a horror film with this woman playing the ghost ever again.’

Despite simply having done her job faithfully, Seong-Yoon had been added to Ra-Eun’s blacklist without realizing it.

Director Choi came up to Ra-Eun while she had been chatting with the other actresses.

“I’ll leave our film’s advertisement to you, Ra-Eun.”

Now that the production had wrapped up, she would be appearing on various programs to advertise the film before its release. The director’s last film had flopped, so he was shouldering an enormous amount of hope and pressure for the film’s success. Ra-Eun assured the anxious Director Choi not to worry.

‘This film is gonna hit over ten million in total audience count, Director.’

She was itching to say it, but she had to hold herself back.

‘It’d be a huge problem if I go around exposing the future too much.’

***

To advertise the film as effectively as Director Choi was hoping for, it was best to appear on programs with as high ratings as possible.

‘But which program?’

Taking Ra-Eun’s popularity into account, she could appear on practically any program that she wanted. She got a call from Ji Han-Seok while she was in deep thought.

“Yes, sunbae.”

- I heard you’ve been looking for variety programs to appear on, Ra-Eun.

It seemed like rumors had already spread.

“That’s right, but I haven’t been able to find any in particular.”

- Really? That’s perfect. In that case...

Han-Seok gave her an enticing offer.

- What do you think about a program that can also act as therapy?