Chapter 261 (1/2)

“You were scary back there. Who were you trying to beat?”

He raised his head to look. He saw Suyeon with a smile.

“Someone that’s not good, I guess.”

“Are you serious?”

“Who knows?”

Maru was aware that there was no good in conversing with this woman. He immediately stood up and left the conference room.

“When did you practice so much?” Suyeon followed him and asked.

Maru stared back at her.

“You have something to say to me?”

“No, I don’t have anything like that.”

“Then why are you following me?”

“You’re a funny one. I just happen to be going the same way as you. Looks like you’re full of yourself.”

“Alright, then.”

Maru nodded and immediately headed towards the men’s bathroom. Suyeon, who was following him, stopped in front of the bathroom with a dumbfounded expression.

“It looks like this isn’t where you were going, huh?”

Maru shrugged as he said those words. Inside the bathroom, he saw Gwak Joon washing his hands. The already gloomy-looking guy had dark circles under his eyes. Gwak Joon sighed and discovered Maru reflected on the mirror.

“You look tired.”

“I didn’t get any sleep because of my new work. I’ll fall asleep the moment I lie down.”

“Sleep is the best medicine.”

Gwak Joon laughed back at him as he wiped his hands off with some paper towel.

“You were good back there.”

“Thank you. I was inwardly worried, but I’m relieved to hear that from you. Oh, are extras usually not called to the read-through?”

“I don’t know. But it’s somewhat funny to ask them to come to say a couple lines and have them stay for a few hours. So maybe not calling them is the right thing to do.”

Hearing those words, Maru nodded his head. He only had two lines. Since that was done, all he had to do now was to flip over the script as the other actors do their bit.

“By the way, I saw that you changed the line.”

Maru scratched his eyes when he heard those rather scolding words. It was definitely wrong of him to change the lines without the original author’s approval. He was scolded before for this as well - that the script is an agreement between the actors and is the essence of the writer’s intentions. He had changed such a thing without permission, so he had nothing to say back to him.

If Gwak Joon simply said that to scold him, Maru would have apologized, but it seemed that he wanted an answer. Maru organized his thoughts before speaking.

“The latter part?”

“Yes. Actually, I didn’t find anything wrong when I read the first part. It was natural and it contained the essence of that situation. I’ve never found it disconcerting even after I practiced hundreds of times. But… when I looked at the elder reading his script, those lines started getting on my tongue. I inwardly started repeating those lines again and again in the conference room, and even uttered to myself in a small voice, and it did not sound as good as it did before.”

“It didn’t sound as good as before?”

Maru nodded his head. This happened while he watched Moonjoong’s act. Is this line fine as it is? The moment that question came to his head, he started doubting the original script. Once he felt disappointed about what seemed like a flawless script, he could no longer exert his emotions into it anymore. However, that didn’t mean that he felt that the line was entirely wrong. He felt that he just needed to change the words just a little to make it right.

“The original line was ‘What kind of shit have you been doing all this time for you to end up there?’, right?”

“That’s right.”

Maru saw that Gwak Joon turned around to face him completely.

“And the line I changed it to is ‘what kind of shit have you been doing all those years for you to become like that?’. It’s just a difference in words, and not a difference in meaning. However, I wanted something more generalized and negative. ‘After all those years’ is a common expression, but it should sound incredibly offensive to the pitiful old man.”

“Then what about ‘end up there’ and ‘become like that’?”

Gwak Joon lifted his glasses with his index finger as he asked.

“‘End up there’ is referring to the old man’s current situation. He’s lying on a bench. Meanwhile, I thought that ‘become like that’ is more generally referring to the state of his life and the expression of disdain for it.”

“And so, it’s a more generalized line?”

“I’m just saying my thoughts about it.”

After listening to his words, Gwak Joon said ‘hm’, before leaving the bathroom. Maru felt that he had to follow.

“What are the two of you….”

Suyeon, who was waiting outside, talked to the two as soon as they got out, but Maru did not answer and Gwak Joon did not seem to care at all. Maru silently greeted her with his eyes before following Gwak Joon down the corridor. Gwak Joon spoke after stopping in front of a window.

“First, I take it positively that you didn’t just parrot the script and that you have your own opinion. I’m the type of person that does not like people blindly following my words to the tee and like people that actually think about the meaning behind my words. However, you took a step too far.”