Chapter 643 (1/2)

“Let’s go for now.”

Maru picked up his bag and stood up. Even though it wasn’t 2 p.m. yet, they got the message to gather as though the schedule was pulled forward. On the way back, Maru observed the group who went ahead of him. The order they walked in seemed to have settled as the woman with sharp eyes took the lead, followed by the earphone man, the one in school uniform, the chatterbox, and then the small girl with a foolish smile on her face. There was no change to the order, and every conversation started from the front and flowed to the back. Not once did it go the other way round. Even a band of marching soldiers would be more free than this. Maru left the group. The woman at the front glared at him slightly. He replied back with a smile.

When they arrived, the only one waiting in the lobby was the woman at the front desk. It seemed that the rest of the applicants had returned. What was different was that the woman was now wearing a baggy t-shirt and jeans instead of a black office suit. There was a large clock drawn in the middle of her t-shirt, and two hands were grabbing the hour hand and the minute hand respectively. It couldn’t be said to be a good design, even as a joke.

“Did you have a good meal?”

Hearing the woman ask, they all replied ‘yes’, ‘well’, ‘it was so so’ and other vague answers. Maru did not reply.

“Shall we go inside?”

The woman at the desk led them to the room where they took the audition in the morning. Other than the fact that there were six chairs inside instead of one, nothing had changed.

“Please sit down in order.”

If the order was the order they entered the room, the woman with sharp eyes should sit at the very right, but she looked around once before sitting in the middle. It seemed that she had done some calculations. Maru went to the seat on the far right which she should have sat on. After everyone sat down. The desk lady sat down at the table in front of them.

“I should introduce myself first, right? My name is Yoo Jayeon and I work for the drama department at YBS.”

Maru nodded. One of the topics they talked about at the café was her identity. As everyone predicted that she had a direct relation to the audition, no one was surprised when she revealed herself to be the producer.

“I was put in charge of a late-night one-act play, and all of you are here in order to participate in it. Some of you might have seen the information about this audition through your acting schools, and perhaps some might have found out through other means. I’ll say this beforehand, but please don’t ask me to take care of you because you’re close to someone. I hate those people.”

Jayeon took out her ID card for the TV station and put it around her neck.

“Everyone here should be in a similar place as me. I have to produce a good work in order to prove my skills, and everyone here has to prove their worth by shooting a good piece. Am I right?”

As it wasn’t a question that was looking for an answer, Maru stayed quiet. Jayeon then stood up and sat on the table.

“You know why you passed the first audition, right?”

“To a certain extent,” replied the woman with sharp eyes.

“Miss Park Minjoo, correct?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“You were reading this acting school’s brochure, right?”

“I was.”

“What did you feel when the man who finished the audition first, left the school looking angry?”

“I thought that he was lacking in both skill and manners.”

“Is the fact that you weren’t disturbed based on your confidence?”

“Yes. I thought that there was no need for me to mind what someone who failed should do.”

“I like that mindset.”

Minjoo replied confidently. It wasn’t just her eyes, her words were razor-sharp as well. She only said what was necessary. It seemed that she knew how to score points.

“Miss Lee Haejung, you were reading a script, right?”

“Yes.”

The small woman, Haejung, replied in a small voice.

“I’ll give you the same question. What did you feel when the man left the place looking angry? Also, what was the reason you kept reading the script without being disturbed? Everyone else, please think about an answer as well. I’ll be asking the same question.”

Haejung, who expressed her nervousness by sucking her lips in, finally spoke.

“Actually, I didn’t know about it. When I raised my head because of the noise, everyone was looking at the entrance nervously. I often get that I’m quite dense.”

“I see. Okay, then. Then what was that script for? Your next audition?”

“Eh? The next audition? N-no, it’s just the script of a film I like.”

“What did you feel when other applicants left the place looking angry just like the ones before them? Did you not notice them too?”

“No, I had found out by then. They left with scary-looking faces, so I was actually really nervous.”

“But you didn’t look nervous to me.”

“Uhm, I kept looking at the script in order to not get nervous. That’s probably why I didn’t look nervous. That’s probably what happened.”

Unlike Minjoo’s clean and confident answer, Haejung’s answer was quite slow and shy in contrast. Jayeon nodded in understanding and then turned her head to the next person. It was the earphone man.

“What about you, Mr. Park Taemin?”

“I usually don’t mind what’s going on around me when I take auditions. I just listen to music and organize in my head what I need to do. When the man left, I just thought ‘okay, cool’. There are people who can’t hold back their emotions wherever you go.”

“Didn’t you feel strange when every single applicant left looking angry?”

“I just thought that there were many weird people. There is no need for me to be assimilated with them and get angry too.”

“Good. I like that attitude. Next is, Mr. Koo Jiyeop?”

It was the man who had his eyes closed. He was also the man who had turned into a chatterbox at the café.

“I was half-asleep so I didn’t quite notice. I did see someone barging out, but I just didn’t mind because it was none of my business. It was the same when other people were staring at the audition room. Rather than being worried about something like that, it’s much better to wait with your eyes closed, don’t you think so?”