NIS Agent Reincarnated as a Genius Actor

As a beam of light suddenly fell on Jin Yu-han’s figure, a moment of silence passed.

People naturally freeze and take time to react when suddenly faced with a completely unexpected situation.

“Hurry up and come on board. We’re about to depart. Please show your ticket and board.”

At that moment, screams erupted belatedly from the audience.

“W-What’s going on?”

“Isn’t that Jin Yu-han?”

“Nah, it must be someone who looks like him.”

And some audience members looked around.

The whispers from people nearby also seemed to confirm it was Jin Yu-han.

“No, look closely, it really is Jin Yu-han!”

“Why is Jin Yu-han suddenly appearing here?”

“Wow! It’s my first time seeing Jin Yu-han in person.”

“What’s going on? Is this some kind of variety show filming?”

Lim Seong-su’s daughter, Lim Yujin, and her friend were no exception.

“Yu-jin! This must be why your dad insisted we come!”

“…I-I guess? But why is Jin Yu-han performing in a place like this?”

The murmuring swept through like a storm and gradually subsided.

It wasn’t incomprehensible that Jin Yu-han was doing a play, as he had recently done musicals too. And since they couldn’t keep talking during the special circumstances of a performance, it eventually quieted down again.

Then Jin Yu-han delivered his line as if nothing had happened.

“I’m in a hurry and couldn’t buy a ticket, but I really need to get on board. Can’t I pay double, no, triple in cash?”

Jin Yu-han hurriedly pulled out cash from his wallet. Seeing this, Ha Jae-hoon scratched the back of his head.

“Ah, we can’t do that. It’s against the law.”

“Please, I’m begging you. Huh?”

As Jin Yu-han waved his hand holding the wad of cash, Ha Jae-hoon’s head moved following the hand.

“Ah, I don’t know. Then board and go straight down to the lobby at the bottom of the stairs.”

Ha Jae-hoon secretly stuffed the cash he received from Jin Yu-han into his back pocket, and Jin Yu-han passed by Ha Jae-hoon with his head down, entering into the darkness of the stage.

Click─.

The highlight above Ha Jae-hoon’s head turned off, and the entire stage went dark again before the large main light in the center turned on.

Guests were standing one by one in rooms divided by walls like public restroom stalls, and Jin Yu-han walked out in front of them.

At that moment, Ha Jae-hoon, who had followed him in, peered into the stalls and approached Jin Yu-han.

“The rooms are almost all full, but luckily there’s one spot left, you know?”

Saying this, he guided Jin Yu-han to the bed closest to the audience on the stage.

“It’s only for 8 hours, so use this room for now and absolutely don’t mention that you boarded without a ticket. You understand, right?”

“Yes. I understand. I got it.”

After Ha Jae-hoon left, Jin Yu-han stretched his hand into the air as if opening a door through mime and entered the space with the bed.

The audience naturally recognized that it was a room, even though there were no walls or doors around the bed where Jin Yu-han was.

‘There’s someone lying on the bed across from him too. So that’s a different room?’

They glanced at the bed opposite Jin Yu-han and then looked back at him.

‘But suddenly Jin Yu-han? What is this performance about?’

An audience member who had come to Daehangno wanting to see a play and entered this theater without much thought because there was no waiting line was still dazed, wondering what had happened to them.

Looking around, it seemed other audience members were the same, their mouths slightly open as they stared intently at Jin Yu-han’s face.

‘Well, I guess I’m not the only one who came in without knowing.’

As Jin Yu-han lay down on the bed, both the light illuminating him and the main light behind him illuminating the rooms went dark.

Then a faint yellow light fell on the bed across from Jin Yu-han.

The silhouette of a man covered with a blanket on the bed stirred and stood up, adjusting his clothes while turned away.

And like Jin Yu-han, he used mime to open the door and went out, crossing the stage and walking to the left.

A dim yellow light that only revealed the presence of a person moved along with the man’s walking path.

The man who had walked to the far left of the stage, where Kim Se-young had come out and joked at the beginning of the play, spoke while turned away.

“Ah, it’s refreshing coming out to the deck.”

Then a strong light illuminated the man, and Kim Se-young approached from the side.

“Sir. Please hold onto the railing when you’re outside. It’s dangerous.”

The man turned around.

“The sunset over the sea is beautiful.”

Seeing the face of the man on stage, the audience, regardless of age or gender, screamed simultaneously.

“Ahhh! W-What?! Isn’t that Ryu Yeon-woo?”

“Is it really Ryu Yeon-woo?”

“Hey, what is this? Jin Yu-han and now Ryu Yeon-woo?”

Everyone looked at the stage with shocked faces.

It was different from when Jin Yu-han appeared. Following Jin Yu-han with Ryu Yeon-woo, the audience was under continuous attack, and the murmuring didn’t stop but grew louder.

Even Song Ju-a, a third-year reporter who had come to the small theater as promised after dinner with her boyfriend, covered her mouth.

‘What is this? Ryu Yeon-woo and Jin Yu-han suddenly popping up on a small theater stage?’

And she remembered what the young man handing out flyers had said.

– From tomorrow, you’ll need to make online reservations, but today, being the first day, we’re only selling tickets on-site!

‘So today is the first performance? Like this, secretly in a small theater with Ryu Yeon-woo and Jin Yu-han on the same stage all of a sudden?’

It’s Jin Yu-han.

He has always been a star at the top, from his child actor days until now.

And then there’s Ryu Yeon-woo, no less.

His career was no longer just a filmography, but was becoming a legacy.

‘But for those two to be on the same stage, and in a small theater tucked away in a corner of Daehangno…’

This is definitely a scoop.

Song Ju-a wasn’t an entertainment reporter, but with a scoop of this magnitude, what did it matter which department she was in?

And at that moment, Yeon-woo on stage was listening to the murmuring from the audience that showed no signs of subsiding and was only growing louder.

Of course, he had anticipated it to some extent, but Kim Se-young standing in front of Yeon-woo also looked visibly flustered by the commotion that had grown larger than expected.

‘I need to break this flow now.’

He needed to bring back the audience who had been pulled out of their immersion in the play due to his appearance.

Ironically, only his presence could be the solution.

Yeon-woo took a deep breath.

Although the line was originally meant to be delivered gently, he had no choice but to deliver it with a firm projection.

“The sunset!”

Although he clearly wasn’t using any sound equipment like a microphone, the wave that came from Yeon-woo’s voice, tempered like hardened steel, diffracted off the domed ceiling of the small theater and pierced directly into the ears of the audience.

As the strong vocalization burst out like lightning from the stage, the startled audience stopped murmuring with the person next to them.

Then Yeon-woo smiled softly and began his lines again.

“Do you know why it’s beautiful? I mean, why the setting sun is more beautiful than the rising sun.”

The audience was momentarily overwhelmed by the presence that actor Ryu Yeon-woo exuded on stage, and fell silent once again.

And Kim Se-young, standing on stage with him, struggled not to be overpowered by Yeon-woo’s strong presence as she answered the question.

“…Well? The sunset is certainly more beautiful than the sunrise.”

Then Yeon-woo quietly recited.

“The regret of falling petals is more beautiful than the freshness of budding sprouts, the enchantment of the setting sun more beautiful than the awe of the rising sun, because we know our own finiteness.”

“Where is that from?”

At Kim Se-young’s question, Yeon-woo shook his head.

“I’m not sure. I can’t remember where I saw it. I might have just made it up on the spot.”

Kim Se-young looked at Yeon-woo and asked:

“Wow, if you don’t mind me asking, what do you do for a living? Are you perhaps a poet?”

Yeon-woo laughed loudly, as if Kim Se-young’s question was unexpected.

“Hahaha. A poet? I guess I got too sentimental looking at the sunset. I’m a homicide detective.”

“A detective? But why are you going to a remote island like Chudo? Has something happened?”

Yeon-woo shook his head.

“No. I’ve been handling several murder cases lately, and they told me to take a week or two off to enjoy the scenery. Some kind of PTSD prevention method, they said.”

“Ah, I see. Still, you’re doing really important work.”

At Kim Se-young’s words, Yeon-woo smiled and looked at the audience.

“Everyone just lives doing the work they’re given in their own place.”

At that moment, an announcement came through the small theater’s speakers.

– Attention, this is the captain speaking. There may be severe waves, so all crew members and passengers on deck are requested to come inside the ship.

With the announcement, Yeon-woo and Se-young went inside, and after all the lights on stage went dark again, the light came on in the captain’s cabin, which was the leftmost partition.

“Captain! There’s a storm warning. We should dock at a nearby island and pause our journey for a while.”

At Ha Jae-hoon’s words, Woo Seong-sik checked the mechanical devices in the captain’s cabin and nodded heavily.

“Right. The closest island is Heukdo. That was an uninhabited island, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. It’s an island where fishing boats temporarily dock when the waves are high.”

“Then let’s head there for now. Jae-hoon, you make the announcement.”

“Understood.”

Then the stage darkened and an announcement flowed out.

– Attention, this is the navigator speaking. A storm warning has been issued at the current time, so our ship will temporarily dock at the nearby island of Heukdo and resume operations once the warning is lifted. We apologize for the inconvenience and ask for your understanding as this is unavoidable for safety reasons…

The announcement faded out with gradually decreasing volume.

After that, as about 5 seconds of silence passed in darkness, the audience started to murmur a little again, trying to talk about Yeon-woo and Jin Yu-han.

At that moment, a sudden piercing scream was heard.

Kyaaak─.

The startled audience opened their eyes wide and looked straight ahead as the main lights came on again across the entire stage.

And Kim Se-young, running as if in a hurry, ran into Kim Jun-su who was cleaning the corridor in front of the cabin.

“Ju, Jun-su! The captain has collapsed. There’s blood all over the floor of the captain’s cabin. I think he’s already dead.”

“…What? Dead? The captain?”

Kim Se-young nodded and pushed Kim Jun-su’s back.

“For now, don’t tell the passengers and quickly bring the guest from Room 4 to the captain’s cabin! I talked to him yesterday, and he said his job was a detective!”

“Room 4? Understood!”

At this point, the audience finally learned about the genre of this play.

‘Ah. A murder has occurred on the ship.’

The poster they saw on the way here and the tickets only had the simple title “Mirror” written on them, so all the audience members who came in here started watching the play without any prior information.

Therefore, they were just surprised by the successive bombshells of Jin Yu-han and Ryu Yeon-woo appearing on stage while watching without knowing what kind of story it was.

However, with the intense progression of the play, they put the question of ‘why are Ryu Yeon-woo and Jin Yu-han here’ on hold in their minds and started to immerse themselves in the content of the play.

Bang bang bang─.

Along with the sound effect, Kim Jun-su knocked on the empty space where Yeon-woo’s door would be.

“Gu, guest!”

Then Yeon-woo stretched out his hand into the empty space, miming opening an imaginary door, and poked his head out.

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m afraid you need to come with me for a moment. It seems something has happened on board.”

“An incident? Let’s talk as we walk.”

Yeon-woo followed Kim Jun-su out of the room.

And they opened the door of the first cabin on the far left among the lined-up cabins.

“Huh!”

Kim Jun-su stepped back in surprise, and Yeon-woo entered the cabin.

On the floor of the room, Woo Seong-sik was lying face up, having bled profusely.

After checking for a pulse on his neck and looking around, Yeon-woo shook his head.

“He’s already dead. This is a murder case. Which means the culprit is someone on this ship.”