Chapter 311 (1/2)

“Of course I didn’t. It was planned beforehand.”

“Really? It looks realistic, though.”

Maru felt like he had become a monkey at a zoo. He turned around to the left. The students of Bosung Girls High quickly turned away. Even though he had met eyes with them, they turned around and pretended they were never interested from the beginning. Maru sighed.

Just as Woosung High was about to do their part after Bosung High’s practice, Daemyung talked about the drama in passing. Maru was about to gloss over it, but Yoojin ended up overhearing it. In the end, they turned the TV on and watched the drama together. It was quite embarrassing to watch his own acting with many people at once. This was why monitoring had to be done alone. His face became hot.

“Aren’t we here to practice?” Maru asked Yoojin, since she held the remote.

“You don’t appear anymore?”

“I’m just an extra, so that’s the end of me.”

Yoojin nodded and turned off the TV.

“So? How was it? Your first drama debut.”

“Is this the time for that? Let’s get to practice before it gets too late.”

Maru glanced at Daemyung. Yoojin thought that what Maru said was plausible and told her juniors to clean up.

“But I don’t think there’s anything they can gain from watching us. I mean, they didn’t do bad.”

The play acted out by Bosung Girls High didn’t have any major flaws. It was a play for the festival. There wouldn’t be any problems as long as it was enjoyable to the audience. Maru spotted some trivial mistakes here and there, but those flaws would instead grab the audience’s attention and make them focus more. They weren’t doing a play for a competition but for a festival, so it might look like a good event instead.

“Not bad means not good either, doesn’t it? Since we’re doing it, we should do it perfectly. Don’t you think so?”

Hearing Yoojin’s words, the girls all replied ‘yes’. Although it was past 8 o’clock in the evening, the girls’ concentration did not waver at all. It seemed that they had no intentions of doing things moderately just because it was a festival they were doing the play for. Maru changed his mind seeing their eyes. Since they were giving it their all, his side couldn’t do things moderately either.

“I don’t know if it’s going to be of any reference, but we’ll show you anyway.”

Maru looked at Daemyung. Daemyung looked at all the rest of the members and had them get ready. This was the first time they did ‘I’ve been really wronged’ in a place other than their clubroom.

Dowook was gulping endlessly. He was the type of person that would become nervous in unexpected situations. He needed to get used to being seen by others.

“This might not be the competition itself, but I wish you can think of it as the real deal.”

Daemyung consoled everyone and told them to take deep breaths. Don’t mind them and just do the usual - were his words.

* * *

“Watch well,” Yoojin spoke to the junior sitting next to her.

This junior played the role of the company employee, the same as Maru. She told her to focus on Maru as an individual rather than the play as a whole. The junior nodded her head carefully.

Although Maru shouldn’t be aware of this, director Choi Joonggeun sometimes mentioned his name after his shoot. The fact that a director of a movie was putting an extra like him in his mind was something out of the ordinary. Additionally, who was director Choi Joonggeun? He was a star movie director that produced several hit works one after the other. He was remembered by such a man, so he must have been great back there. He should also have improved from when he did the read-through.

Yoojin leaned against a wall and watched Woosung High’s play. Unlike practice, there were a few hiccups here and there. The mistakes mostly came from the first years. It was an unnoticeable mistake for those that didn’t know the play, but even Dowook made a mistake.

Meanwhile, Daemyung showed very stable acting skills. Although he was usually shy, he switched into a completely different person once he started acting. The way he crossed his legs and yawned was without a doubt a lazy policeman.

Compared to Maru, however, Daemyung’s presence was definitely more faint. She turned her gaze to Maru, who was suppressing his voice slightly at the center of the stage. If other people were asked ‘what do you think that actor’s age is’ after Maru dressed up in a suit and covered his face, anyone would reply that he was in his late forties. It felt so disconcerting that a high school student had an expression befitting of someone that age. It would in fact sound more realistic if he was a middle-aged man wearing special makeup to look young.

He was that natural. It didn’t feel like he was acting at all. No matter how stable Daemyung looked during acting, it was noticeable that he was a high school student acting. The others didn’t even need mentioning. They were obvious.

It was just Maru that was different from others. He became one with his role - this expression couldn’t fit better than in a situation like this. The only flaw, if there was any, was that he looked too young. How could he be so good?

‘Also, he’s even better now that it’s not practice.’

Ordinarily, it’s easier to bring out one’s fullest skills in a comfortable environment. The audience’s gaze was that scary. The pressure given off by those watching would make most people flinch back.

However, Maru seemed to take that pressure as his motivation instead. Perhaps he was someone that became better under pressure.

She had originally invited Woosung High to help out her juniors, but now she thought that she was instead doing the opposite. Her original intention was for her juniors to watch Woosung High’s completed play and find their own flaws, and improve on themselves, just like how singers would listen to guide songs and eventually make the song theirs. She thought that her juniors were smart and were plenty capable of doing that, and it seemed that it was true to a certain extent as well. However, she felt that it wouldn’t be helping the junior that had the same role as Maru.

She would be able to gain some confidence and strive to do better if the target was someone within reach, but it was likely that her confidence would waver instead if she was seeing someone that was way out of her league. Yoojin had a glance at the junior sitting next to her. She was one ambitious junior. She had taken one of the major roles for the winter acting competition. She had enough skills to match her ambition, but she had a very serious look on her face right now. It didn’t look like she was understanding anything. She looked like she was looking at something foreign.

“Let’s just watch. He’s a strange one. So just think of him as an anomaly.”

In the end, she had to change her words. She felt that the knowledge her junior had complied until now regarding acting would collapse if she told her to try imitating him.

The words Yoojin heard the most when getting acting lessons from her instructor was to not follow things that she couldn’t catch up to. A sparrow wasn’t capable of catching up to an eagle. Looking at the peak at the bottom of the mountain and then climbing would tire one out very easily. People needed to focus on closer objectives like reaching the next tree. Only then would one arrive at the top of a mountain.