Life, Once Again!

“Punk, are you a frigging mole? Why do you need to dig anything?”

“Team leader, don’t you think it smells?”

“If it smells, then go home and take a shower. Get a new set of clothes too. Is being a criminal investigator some symbol of dirtiness? Let’s at least look like humans, alright?”

“Team leader.”

“Stop calling me! What’s your intention behind wanting to continue digging? Do you want to attach the word ‘serial’ in front of that case?”

“It’s not an entirely wild idea.”

“You fucking lunatic. You think that every incident in the world is unjust, suspicious, and has a different side to it, right? Have you heard about Occam’s razor?”

“Yes, I know about it.”

Yoo Jichan, who was about to continue, coughed dryly. He immediately reached out to the side and drank some water.

“I’m sorry.”

“Relax. You’re doing okay,” said the actor playing the role of the team leader of team 2.

Jichan cleared his throat and spoke again,

“Yes, I know about it. But don’t the circumstances look strange?”

“Yes, I’m sure it looks strange. I’m sure everything looks strange to you. But do you think crime investigators can move based on circumstantial evidence alone? And not only that, a case that was already closed by the court? It’s a case that a prosecutor has organized and been closed by a judge. It’s your seniors who guided that case there. Now you want to flip that thing over, huh? You don’t even know what you’re saying by saying that you want to dig into that case, do you?”

“But.”

“Don’t ‘but’ me. If you want to do something, bring me something with clear evidence. Then you settle the deal with the district leader.”

“Are you going to take responsibility if it’s actually a serial killer case?”

“Responsibility? Haha, responsibility, huh? I guess there lives an investigator who holds up the justice of this whole world. You were looking at this case from a perspective that someone insignificant like me would never understand. Fine, keep going outside. I’ll leave you out of team tasks, so do whatever you want to your heart’s content, officer Park Seok-oh. I hope you can get something concrete.”

The actor playing the role of the team leader tensed his eyes. He didn’t slack off just because this was a read-through. He was expressing a veteran violent crimes investigator with his unique accent and tone of speech.

Maru remembered the image of the investigator expressed by the actor in his forties. If he ever found himself playing a detective or an investigator role after he was forty, he would refer to this man’s acting.

He then looked at Jichan. As he saw during the audition, this man’s acting wasn’t bad. His pronunciation was precise and the way he expressed his emotions was natural. He looked slightly immature because he was not proficient in acting itself, but if he was given enough time to adjust, he would not hear that he was terrible at acting.

“Jongsoo, go easy on him. You’re draining Jichan’s energy. I’m just watching from the side, but I find it scary. You’re too good at acting, so you need to restrain yourself in a situation like this,” commented Jisook.

Hearing the great senior’s joke, the actors laughed and put down the scripts. Jisook always spoke up whenever there was a hint that the atmosphere was becoming stiff. She was someone who spread around good energy like a scented candle. Shooting with her would probably be filled with laughter.

The director and the writer read the narrations out loud in turns.

The background changed a few times before it returned to the police station again. The story that was portrayed through the views of various characters returned to the murder case.

Maru took his eyes off the script.

“Say it if you want to say something. Don’t just stand there like an anxious dog,” Park Sinseo said. His voice was filled with fatigue.

Although his voice was small and dragged out, his pronunciation was not mangled. His transmission of emotions and words was incredible.

Maru could tell from that short line that the assessment of the world about him was accurate. The actor in front of him was a proper actor.

“Senior, what do you think about the Yeonma-dong incident?” Jichan asked. His voice had become a level firmer than before. He seemed to have gotten used to this space.

“What do you think about it?” Sinseo asked back. His eyes were not on the script, but looking right at Jichan.

Jichan had his nose stuck in the script and didn’t seem to notice that Sinseo was looking at him. He was wasting the great opportunity to feel the breath of a good senior and learn from his eyes. If he had just a slight bit of leisure, he would have raised his head to look at the person he was talking to instead of following the lines with his eyes.

The less proficient someone was with acting, the more they had to look at the person they were talking to, rather than the text. It wasn’t too late to be more liberal after getting used to acting while looking into the eyes of their partner.

“I think it’s a serial killer case.”

“I think you’ve been looking into it for a long time. Did you get something?”

“I can’t say for sure yet, but the two disappearance cases are tugging on my mind.”

“So you’re saying that those two cases where people went missing aren’t just what it seems like and might be murder instead?”

“Yes. I at least think so. I talked to the team leader about it, but he won’t listen to me.”

“Faith is important, but to us, concrete proof is what matters even more.”

“So help me out a little here. There’s a limit to how much I can do by myself.”

Sinseo calmly turned around his head as he listened to Jichan’s words. He seemed to be the stereotypical ‘intellectual detective’ character. He seemed like he was going to solve every single case while sitting on a rocking chair. Maru rather liked the interpretation of the character that Sinseo displayed.

“Sinseo’s good and Jichan is good too. Senior Moonjoong, don’t you think the young people today are too good?”

“You’re having too much fun with young fellas around,” said the elder while pushing up his glasses.

“I’m also having fun because you’re around, senior,” Sinseo said with a laugh.

Jichan just smiled, seemingly finding it hard to speak between the two.

“Man, I’m sore,” Seungah said while straightening her back.

As it looked like they were taking a break, everyone started doing stretches. They also opened the windows for a bit saying that they needed some ventilation.

“There are two scenes left,” Maru said as he flipped through the script. Seungah would appear in the next scene.

She was a part-timer in the gukbap restaurant next to the police station. She would sometimes talk to the investigators, who were the lead characters.

“I’m slowly starting to get nervous. Thinking about how I have to do this in front of the seniors, I’m getting even more nervous than during the audition.”

“Why don’t you screw up badly and get attention that way? Senior Park Sinseo might look at you.”

“Be real. I’m going to get attention because I do well. Watch me, I’ll show you how smooth I can be. I look like this, but I’ve done dramas before.”

Despite her confident words, Seungah’s legs were shaking. Maru pointed at Seungah’s knees.

“That’s because it’s cold. We opened the windows.”

Seungah took a deep breath before quietly saying her lines. Maru listened to her chant–like lines before tapping her on the shoulder. Director Cha had sat down and was looking around at the actors.

“Shall we continue?”

Along with his signal, Jichan picked up the script again. Lines were exchanged. As the tension within the story became heightened, the expressions of the actors also became more serious.

Even Jisook, who constantly threw jokes, kept looking at the script ever since she put on her glasses.

Lines were tossed across the air without a break. Right before the hints of the murder case were about to be revealed, Seungah’s character appeared.

“You seem busy these days, huh?” she lightly spoke.

Jichan let out a heavy breath and grumbled. He received a call just before he could eat and rushed out of the restaurant.

“Er, detective!”

Calling out to Jichan in a loud voice was the end of Seungah’s role. Having finished her role, Seungah’s cheeks were puffed. Rather than satisfaction from having finished her role successfully, half of her face was filled with disappointment.

“Yes, senior. I’m going back right now.”

After Jichan’s words ended, everyone flipped over the page.

“It’s your turn now,” Seungah whispered as she pointed at the script.

* * *

Seungah looked at the actor who uttered the lines clearly. Everyone here was skilled. Although she would pick Park Sinseo in terms of appearance, based on acting skill, it was hard to say who was the best, especially when it came to veteran actors.

Whether it was wits or their words, most of them toyed around with the lines they had instead of just saying them.

They were actors she knew the faces of, but not the names. They were actors she saw on TV but hardly left an impression on her. From the perspective of an outsider, they might not be considered that successful.

However, as an aspiring actress, these actors that ‘the masses didn’t know that well’ seemed like tall mountains to her; they were mountains so high that she could not see their summits no matter how hard she raised her head.

There are many young actors, but there are only a handful of veteran actors; that’s how hard it is to survive as actors — these were Miso’s words. They were also words that Seungah swore not to forget.

“We got a newbie in our team,” said the team leader of the Violent Crimes Team 2.

Seungah looked next to her at Maru. Would the newbie, who was waiting, be nervous? When she had a look at his face, she saw that Maru was looking at the script just like usual. She was sure this guy was not right in the head. Not to mention nervousness, he probably didn’t know fear either.

“He’s a crazy guy who immediately applied to go to the crimes department after probation. I can’t believe he volunteered to go to the violent crimes section when everyone else avoids it,” said the team leader while shaking his head. Amidst his absurd laughter was a sense of joy.

“How old is he?” Sinseo asked.

“Twenty-four, I heard? He also apparently got an award for being a brave citizen. He didn’t go to college and went straight to the military before getting hired through the open recruitment period. And now, he’s here.”

“It’s good to have some new blood. That way you’ll be able to stay at the desk for longer.”

Seungah slightly turned around to look at Maru. It was his turn to say his line now.

“Hello everyone! I’m Park Uijung, and as of today, I’ve been assigned to Team 2 of the Violent Crimes department at Jijoong Police Station!”

Maru said his line with his back slightly curled up. The way he looked at his script was so clear and bright like a child who was at a theme park.

His face was all smiles and his shoulders were jumpy. His voice was cheerful like cymbals. It was quite a contrast to his usual deeper and slightly slower way of talking.

When that voice was layered on top of the image of Han Maru she had in her head, she felt it was quite awkward. It even felt a little forced. However, that sense of disparity disappeared as soon as he said his second line.

“He’s totally into it. Hey, are you that happy that you’re a detective now?”

“I am! It’s my dream to catch criminals to create a brighter society.”

“What a total douche.”

“Yes! I’m a total douche.”

He was mischievous but not hateful. Thanks to the cheerfulness in his voice, the form of the character was formed in an instant. Even she, who knew what Han Maru was like, accepted the mischievous Han Maru without much rejection, even going as far as to wonder that maybe this was how he really was.

Some of the actors who had their backs facing Maru even turned around to look at him. While the attention was quite prickly, Maru had his eyes fixed on the script and said his lines like a machine gun. He never took his eyes off the script while he played his part as the chatterbox new recruit.

After saying about four lines of self-introduction, Maru closed his mouth, his expression still looking excited.

“Team leader, can we reject him?”

Seungah could see that Sinseo was smiling as he said his line. The team leader of team 2, who had turned around to look at Maru, was also making a similar smile.

“How can we return someone who came here? But hey, newbie. Can you dance?”

Dance? Seungah looked at the script. There was no such line.