Chapter 259 (1/2)

Two people with cameras on tripods entered. The cameramen walked around the place to find a good angle. Like that, two cameras were set up. Following that, the journalists that were waiting outside entered. They took their seats without a fuss as though they had been instructed beforehand. Following that, people holding scripts in their hands entered. They seemed to be the producers of this movie.

The empty seats started being filled one by one and all the seats except for a few chairs reserved for actors.

“Why is Jiseok not coming?” Yoojin asked. Maru also looked around the conference room. Jiseok and his casual smile couldn’t be seen anywhere.

“Maybe he has a prior engagement.”

“Are you not even worried?”

“We’re not close enough for me to be worried.”

“You’re so heartless.”

“If you’re so worried, give him a call.”

“I can’t be bothered, so no.”

Who was heartless now? Maru stretched his arms out to shake off his nervousness.

“It’s Suyeon-unni.”

Suyeon entered the room and greeted the actors that had arrived before her. The senior actors welcomed her. Suyeon sat opposite of Joohyun.

“Unni, please take care of me this time as well.”

“Okay. This is our second time since we did a drama together last time, huh? Please take care of me as well.”

Suyeon and Joohyun warmly greeted each other, but Maru could see sparks between the two.

“Oh, Yoojin. Why are you over there? Your seat is over here,” Suyeon called out to Yoojin.

Yoojin tilted her head and stood up to have a look at the name plates on the table. Maru had a look as well and indeed, there was a nameplate with the name ‘Second daughter/Lee Yoojin’ on it. Yoojin walked towards her reserved seat and sat dow. The seat emptied by Yoojin was filled with someone else right after. Maru saw that Yoojin was looking at him apologetically. Maru just shrugged once though, since it was natural for Yoojin, who had many appearing scenes, to sit on the main table. After all, there were different levels of extras as well.

“Oh, you’re all here.”

Following that, Park Taeho entered. As he was someone who had received the best actor award in the Daejong Awards, Maru saw that a lot of journalists were competing to take photos of him. The actors all slightly stood up to greet him as well.

“Don’t stand. You should do that when sir Yoon comes here.”

Taeho laughed heartily before taking his seat. His lively personality hadn’t changed since the audition. Maru’s eyes met with Taeho’s for a brief moment, and Taeho winked at him. Maru also smiled back and took a light bow.

“Joohyun, your hair is still purple. It will be quite the scene to look at if you keep that hair during shooting, right?”

“Should I? I should ask the director if I can.”

“Pfft, you’re taking a joke so seriously”

“I was joking too. Did you take that seriously?”

Joohyun and Yoonhae then started laughing and looked at each other warmly. Maru sighed. There was a sharp knife behind those warm smiles. The conversation between women was really scary.

‘They’re openly hostile towards each other. Is the relationship between the two that bad?’

It seemed that the two were on really bad terms with each other considering that they were causing this scene in front of the journalists. Thinking back, Joohyun seemed to have a lot of enemies. After all, she didn’t seem to be on close terms with Suyeon either. To a woman like Suyeon who had a lot of secrets, a woman like Joohyun, who openly revealed all of her thoughts might be an uncomfortable existence.

“Looks like the relationship between our actresses are quite good,” Taeho spoke as he picked up his script. Thanks to his words, the volatile atmosphere calmed down in an instant. Yoonhae chuckled and told Taeho that he got fat. The flow of the conversation shifted towards Taeho and Yoonhae, and Joohyun started reading her script as though nothing had happened.

“Phew.”

Maru saw that the man sitting next to him was sighing. From how he was looking at Joohyun nervously, it seemed that this man was her manager. Maru found him quite pitiful seeing that he was worrying about the actress he was in charge of making mistakes.

“Joohyun-noona, please have some restraint.”

Maru inwardly cheered for the manager. He was aware of the manager’s predicaments. After all, road managers were the ones who got all the insults regardless of what they did. He would have to run errands during the middle of the night at random, and call various places if he somehow drove the actress late to a schedule.

“Looks like everyone’s here. Nice to meet you all, haha.”

Choi Joonggeun entered. He was the director of this movie. Following that, Gwak Joon entered as well, wearing black glasses. He was the author of the original work and had participated in making the script as well, so he was qualified to be here as well.

Maru slightly nodded towards Gwak Joon to greet him. Gwak Joon lifted his hand towards him to greet back.

A little more passed until the majority of actors including Geunsoo sat down at the table.

“So we’re only missing sir Yoon, now?”

Director Choi Joonggeun sat down and spoke. Gwak Joon sat next to him. There were still five minutes until the read-through time. Junmin entered at that time. A few people were following him, who seemed to be the people from the production company.

Everyone started conversing under the lead of the director. He seemed to know everyone here as he was comfortable when talking with everyone. He made sure that everyone got their turns to speak. He was the prime example of a director that didn’t just shout ‘cut’ and was someone that actually cared about the piece.

Just as everyone was talking and laughing over recent matters, the door opened once again. This time, everyone looked at the door in silence. Maru was the same. He closed his script and watched as Moonjoong entered the conference room. He was holding a black plastic bag in one hand. He was wearing a beige coat and a pair of brown shoes with their noses worn out. He seemed like just an ordinary old man one would find in a neighborhood as he entered the room with a kind smile.

“Sorry for that. I was a little late because I had to visit some place.”

“Not at all, sir. You’re just in time. No, you’re a minute early.”

Joonggeun jabbed at him lightly and led Moonjoong to the seat of honor

“Wait.”

Before he took his seat, Moonjoong took out something from the plastic bag he was holding. They were tangerines.

Tangerines? Just as Maru was wondering what was going on, Moonjoong gave the actors around the table a tangerine each. The ones that remained were given to the people at the perimeter.

“Please take care of me,” Moonjoong took his seat as he said those words with a warm smile.