Chapter: 112
In Howlen’s eyes, the nameless girl was a genius.
She possessed a talent he lacked. Her voice was a siren’s call, capable of captivating hearts, and her gentle smile was a magician’s trick that compelled anyone to reach out to her. The power of a witch who lures people into the forest to devour them was perhaps the most essential talent for an actor.
Moreover, it was a talent Howlen did not have.
His own acting skills were so pitiful they barely qualified for the word “clumsy.” Luck had granted him extraordinary popularity, but the reality was that he fell short even compared to latecomers who had picked up acting later than him.
There were times he considered giving up everything.
However, there was a personal realization that kept him from surrendering completely; he clung to his mediocre acting as a way to sustain his life.
[Hook paced the deck, lost in deep thought.]
[Hook was not his real name. If his real name were to be revealed, it would set fire to this land.]
Howlen stepped onto the creaking deck, raising his hooked hand high.
Then, after several rehearsals, Captain Hook’s lines flowed from his lips.
[“Perhaps Hook could have been a better person,” Hook lamented. “If only his ambition had been less!”]
[Referring to himself in the third person was something he only did during his darkest times.]
Now, he no longer suffered from feelings of inferiority just because his talent was lacking.
He believed that today he was better than he was yesterday, and if he didn’t stop improving today, he would likely be even better tomorrow.
Sometimes he stumbled backward, but he was undoubtedly a much better actor than he was a few years ago.
That was the epiphany he had come to find: it wasn’t about being more talented than other actors, but about being a better actor than yesterday’s self.
Wanting to share this realization, he began teaching acting to his juniors, sometimes losing himself in this banal, tiresome insight and practicing later into the night.
And then.
[Everyone heard the terrifying sound of a ‘tick-tock.’]
[The pirate, the boy, Wendy. All heads turned in one direction. It was not the water that made the sound, but it came toward Captain Hook.]
[Everyone could guess what would happen next.]
[Hook collapsed onto a small pile as if all his joints had been severed.]
Sometimes, there were dreadful feelings of defeat that even the most profound realizations couldn’t comfort.
A feeling so grotesque and awful that it made a once-noble villain crawl across the deck and escape down the hallway.
Howlen, lying on the deck, crawled as far away as he could from where the sound had come.
The tick-tock grew louder, and from the shadow where the noise was emanating, a boy… no, a girl stepped out. Since Howlen was crawling in the opposite direction, he couldn’t see her.
[The one coming to their rescue was not a crocodile. It was Peter.]
[Peter gestured for silence, signaling them not to raise any eyebrows. Then, he continued ticking.]
Peter Pan.
The nameless witch.
As she stepped onto the stage, the audience held its breath.
At that moment, it seemed as though every audience member had turned into Captain Hook.
“…”
On the quiet stage where only the ticking sound could be heard, Howlen thought to himself.
He wanted to act like that too.
. . .
Every witch is born with a deep longing for ‘emotion.’ It is the only feeling a witch is permitted, and it becomes an unquenchable curse on her existence.
That was why the witch Mary Jane had spent a thousand years searching for the feeling of ‘love’, while the young witch learned the art of expression under the tutelage of an actor named Howlen.
And.
The more the young witch learned acting, the more she started to realize something.
[“Peter Pan! Who are you, and what do you want?” Hook shouted hoarsely.]
Imitation, after all, is just imitation.
The young witch could mimic every emotion, but she could not truly feel them in any meaningful sense. She could make others believe in her emotions, but she couldn’t evoke any within herself.
That… might have been an incredibly unfortunate circumstance.
The fact that a witch doesn’t feel emotions like despair or misery might even be seen as a blessing.
The witch gradually came to understand that she could not feel ‘emotion.’
[“I am youth, and I am joy,” Peter replied fearlessly. “I am a little bird that has just hatched from an egg.”]
[This was, of course, utter nonsense. Peter knew neither who he was nor what he was.]
Howlen’s sword clashed against the dagger she held.
The two swords were merely prop copies without sharp edges. The melodious sound created by their clash was nothing but a ruse, fabricated below the stage by metal instruments.
She saw Howlen’s face as he acted as “Captain Hook.”
In his aristocratic and despairing expression, learned but tinged with a strange zeal she hadn’t encountered before.
Howlen’s breath was heavier than during practice, and his eyes were deeper than he had ever shown in rehearsal. His fingertips trembled slightly, giving the impression of excitement or fear.
He was acting out ‘Hook’s’ emotions while still feeling ‘Howlen’s’ emotions.
A feat impossible for the witch.
Cold sweat revived with a bizarre heat, rationale and emotion clashed, causing his facial muscles to tremble, and the tension in his grip made his balance waver.
All these contradictory feelings were something the witch was never permitted to experience.
Of course, she never felt terrible jealousy or miserable despair over this fact; she didn’t think to burden Howlen with such feelings either.
The witch merely “acted” as she’d practiced.
As Captain Hook was driven to the edge of the deck by Peter Pan, he leaped onto the rail.
[James Hook, you are not a heroic figure at all. Farewell.]
[We arrived at his last moment.]
Instead of swinging his sword, Peter kicked Hook off to make him fall.
Whether Hook fell due to that kick or whether, faced with death, he maintained his aristocratic demeanor and chose to step back into the sea instead of being kicked was difficult to determine.
All that was certain was his fate.
For that ocean was home to the crocodile.
[Finally, Hook obtained the grace he had longed for.]
[He mockingly shouted, “This is a bad move!” as he was satisfyingly devoured by the crocodile.]
. . .
When the play finally concluded, the young witch thought the lights would brighten and all the staff would bustle about preparing to clean the stage and its props, just as they always did during practice.
However, this time felt different somehow. Cheering and applause erupted so loudly from outside that it echoed into the green room.
“We need to go out for the curtain call now.”
“Yes!”
She knew what a curtain call was; it was included in their practice too.
After a play, the actors come back on stage to bow to the audience. However, when she had practiced, the audience seats were always empty, making its significance difficult to grasp.
Thus, it was her first true experience of a ‘curtain call.’
As she stepped out of the green room, bright lights illuminated the stage.
The audience was either cheering or clapping, making the performance hall resound with excitement; the more the young witch moved towards the center of the stage, the louder the applause grew.
“…”
Finally, the young witch stood at the center of the stage with Howlen.
Only now could she properly face the audience. When she acted, she hadn’t clearly seen their faces; this was the first time she could look at the audience’s expressions.
“…Ah.”
In that moment, the young witch felt a certain… satisfaction. A satisfaction akin to quenching a dreadful thirst.
The witch’s magic sparked in her gaze, illuminating each audience member’s face distinctly as the myriad expressions of satisfied spectators merged into a single ‘emotion’ that dug deep into her soul. She realized just how diverse the expressions created by a single play could be.
Cheers. Applause. Shouts of encouragement. Whistles.
The myriad expressions of the thousands who had come to watch the play, and the voices of thousands crying out.
“Ahh…”
Her heart raced.
The applause faded in rhythm with her heartbeat, and the cheers infused her with a pulsating energy.
While she personally couldn’t feel such a thrill, she was experiencing this intensity through the breaths of countless audience members.
And so, in this moment.
The young witch performed her duty as an actress on the curtain call.
“Thank you─!”
Such was her expression of gratitude.
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