Chapter 507 (1/2)

“Maru, it’s starting!”

“Oppa, what are you doing?”

He was in desperate need of some earmuffs right now. Maru tried blocking his ears with his hands, but he could not block out Bada’s voice since she spoke right next to his ears.

“I said it’s starting. Let’s watch it while we have dinner.”

“I’m not watching it.”

“Why? Let’s watch it together.”

Maru looked at Bada through the corner of his eyes. She had an evil smile on her face and was clearly enjoying this situation. Bada, who never watched a TV program without her favorite celebrity, was talking about how today was the first episode since the morning for some reason. It must have been for this moment.

“Do you want to watch my acting that bad?”

“I want to see you curl up like a squid. Come quickly. It’s starting now.”

Maru was dragged by Bada to the living room.

“Mrs. Lee. Wasn’t our family motto to eat at the table?”

The food was on the sitting table in the living room instead of the dining room. It was good that his favorite dubu muchim[1] and jeyuk-bokkeum[2] were on the table, but he felt like he had a bad stomach already when he thought about how he would have to eat dinner while watching the first episode of ‘New Semester’.

“From now on, we are going to eat dinner here on Saturdays at five.”

“I can just give her some snacks when she says she’s hungry. Sit down already. The ads are almost over.”

Since both the mother and the daughter were acting against him, he was helpless. Maru gave up and sat down. The phone he brought with him was getting messages and calls since ten minutes ago, and they were all from his classmates. He checked the first text message just in case, but the content was quite a spectacle to look at.

-I shall watch your acting and give you an evaluation. Look forward to it.

The texts after that were about the same. He didn’t know that the rebellious and adolescent high school students would all be thinking about the same thing. It was lamentable. He ignored the texts and the calls and started eating.

“Aren’t you getting calls?”

“I can ignore them. It’s just my friends who decided to tease me. Mom, this is a drama for young people, so it won’t suit your tastes.”

“Forget about tastes. My son is in it, so I have to watch it.”

Maru wanted to go hide in a hole or something.

“It’s starting.”

“Who’s that unni?”

“Ahn Yeseul.”

“You close to her?”

“No.”

“What the heck.”

Bada quickly asked a question before focusing on the screen.

“You should focus on the food when you’re eating.”

“Don’t mind me. I can eat with my eyes closed. Right, mom?”

Even his mom, who would scold Bada for it usually, just replied to her with a smile. If it was going to be like this, it would’ve been better if he didn’t mention anything about the first episode at all. It was still too embarrassing for him to watch himself appear on the screen. If he thought of it as work and watched it by himself, he could watch it no problem, but watching it with someone else like this, especially his family members, was something he would not get used to in his entire lifetime.

“It’s a middle school in Seoul.”

“Wow, why is it so different from our school?”

He ate a spoonful of rice before looking at the screen. The camera slowly backed away from the scene where Yeseul, Giwoo, and Jichan walked through the school gates together, and the OST started flowing out of the speakers. Then it faded out. On top of the blacked out screen, the title of the first episode appeared. Just What is a Friend? - that was the title of the first episode.

“When do you come out, son?” His mom asked after watching it.

“Mom, it’s only been thirty seconds since it started. Wait a bit.”

“I thought you were a supporting character. Aren’t you going to appear really quickly?”

“I’ll probably appear soon.”

The first episode, which he shot two months ago at the beginning of January, aired in March just like the title ‘New Semester’[3]. He didn’t know why it was delayed from the original January airing date, all the way to March, but the internet seemed to think that the decision was well-made. Since it was a youth drama, the main target audience was naturally young people. The reason it was airing at 5 on a Saturday was also to target that student demographic.

He was chopping up some tofu when Yeseul’s narration started and the three people went into the left entrance of the school.

The camera shot the corridor from the main character’s perspective. It then switched to an overhead view when the three reached the central door. This was the scene where Yeseul and Okseon confronted each other.

“I’ll be appearing soon, but only for a brief moment.”

Okseon talked to Yeseul with a proud expression, and Yeseul replied with a nonchalant face.

He remembered that it took about ten tries to do this scene. Yeseul and Okseon looked cute in the frame. Okseon was a little tanned, while Yeseul, as expected of a child actress, looked very bright. It was the makeup that differed according to the character, and it was emphasized under the lights and the camera.

“Oh! There you are!” Bada said.

The rice grains in her mouth flew outwards. He pitied Dowook when he looked at his sister who didn’t have the slightest bit of feminine charms. He was even worried if Dowook was being bullied by her or something.

“Maru, Maru. You are right there. Oh, my word. Oh my word.”

Maru clasped his arms with his hands. His mother slapped his arms with a giggle, and her hands were quite harsh. Bada’s harsh use of her hands was probably inherited from their mother.

That’s one goofy-looking person - Maru rubbed his nose as he looked at himself on the screen. He looked quite good in glasses. Her aesthetic senses had shone. There she goes again - his first line as a supporting character flowed out through the speakers. Of course, he didn’t say that line while the camera had its attention on him. It was more like background noise.

“I’m talking from the side after all.”

“When are you going to appear again?”

“Mom, watch for the plot. Do you watch dramas just to look at your son?”

“Well, I sure do. So, when are you going to appear again?”

“In the classroom scene, probably.”

His mother was watching TV while on her phone, and she was sending texts at a speed that did not lose out to a high school girl.

“Who are you texting?”

“My friends.”

“What are you telling them?”

He peeked at her phone screen, and it was all about telling her friends to watch New Semester. He wanted to tell her to stop, but she wasn’t someone who would listen just because he told her, so he decided not to.

“OMG! Han Maru is on TV! He has glasses on! This is insane, insane. He’s actually there.”

After hopping around with a spoon, Bada approached him before putting her spoon before him.

“Mr. Han Maru. What do you feel now that you’ve become an actor?”

“Hey, put it away before I start hitting you.”

“Pop star Han Maru! Are you saying that you are going to use violence? If you do….”

He smacked Bada on the head. For some reason, she didn’t snap out with ‘Maru hit me’ like usual and just grinned from ear to ear. Maru once again realized that smiles could be really unpleasant at times. At the same time, he pitied Dowook even more. He even thought that he should give Dowook a warm hug the next time he complained to him about Bada.

The scene was now where Jichan and Yeseul were talking in the corridor. The background song was sung by a popular idol group. Their name was….

“It’s the Change-oppas!”