Life, Once Again!

It was right after they explained the progression of the play and were about to start when Maru picked up his phone with a troubled face.

“Go on. We aren’t in a hurry.”

“I’ll be right back. I’ll tell Haneul about this on the way out.”

“Yes.”

Jungah looked at Maru walking towards the audience seats. He said a few words to Haneul before leaving the theater.

“Do you think he got a casting call?”

“It’s definitely work since he said he has to take it. I once dreamed of becoming like that.”

“If you want, why don’t you quit preparing for employment and come back to acting?”

“I know my own limits. This kind of stage is the best I can do. Rather than that, let’s do a final check before senior Maru comes back. I’m nervous for some reason.”

While her friends went through the important lines in each act, Jungah looked at Haneul who was in the audience seats. She was taking a call with her right hand while using a tablet PC with her left. She looked very busy.

“I feel like I saw her somewhere before,” she muttered.

“I thought that too.”

Sinhye stood next to her. Jungah asked Sinhye, who placed her chin on her shoulder.

“You too?”

“The name rings a bell, you know. Han Haneul, Han Haneul…”

Sinhye looked it up on her phone. The web portal showed Han Haneul’s info. Jungah squinted and read the text that appeared on the screen.

“She’s an actress alright. Oh, it was this.”

Sinhye moved her finger. ‘Friendly Aroma’ could be seen where she was pointing at.

That was a brand she had heard of. She also remembered a few of her friends saying that it was a decent brand.

“Yes, I knew I saw her somewhere. She’s the model for Friendly Aroma. She’s pretty famous. I saw the blog posts she wrote before, yeah? And she’s the definition of a self-made woman.”

“Self-made?”

“She’s the same age as senior Maru, and she quit college to jump into the aroma business.”

“She must be pretty well-off, huh, seeing as she managed to prepare the money to create a business while she was still in college.”

Hearing Jungah’s words, Sinhye shook her finger in denial.

“No, no. That’s not it. Apparently, she visited a factory that had all the production infrastructure and advised them on their business practices. She apparently told them that she would help with product development and marketing while they take care of the production line. It sounded so amazing that I briefly had a dream of becoming a businesswoman after seeing that post.”

“That’s pretty amazing. She’s the owner of a business when she’s around the same age as us.”

“It just goes to show that she started off with a different talent. She must have talent as a businessperson. But as an actress, I’m not sure.”

Sinhye opened a new window. It was a page related to the film. On there was a movie that Han Haneul participated in as a supporting actress. It was a movie Jungah knew quite well.

“Oh, it’s this. I saw her in this one.”

The movie was produced by director Lee Sooae. She had been looking forward to the movie when she heard that a director known for melo films decided to film an espionage film based on the Japanese rule of Korea.

“Didn’t this do terribly? I was going to watch it, but the reviews were terrible, so I decided not to. There were talks about nationalism, bad production, and even attitude problems from the actors,” Sinhye said.

Jungah nodded in response.

“I had quite been looking forward to it, so I watched it on the date of the release.”

“Was it as bad as they say?”

“Yeah. It had been a long time since I got burned by a domestic drama.”

“And she participated in that drama, huh?”

Sinhye twitched her eyes and looked at Haneul. Their other friends gathered around as well. They all said a word each as they looked at Sinhye’s phone.

“If it was rated 2 by critics, that might go down in the history of Korean film.”

“There’s an article that goes like this: This movie exposed the problem of reckless nationalist marketing. It was the limitation of a director that only knew how to stimulate emotions.”

“There was also a controversy regarding the actors’ acting skills. Yoon Hanbyul, playing the role of Jungae, felt like a little match girl in need of help rather than a cold-headed spy. Do they usually go this far? Entertainment journalists and actors are in a symbiotic relationship.”

“Apparently, one of the main actors outright swore at the journalists during the press release. It’s not surprising that they wrote a bad article. If the movie was good, the journalists would have no choice but to write a good one even if they don’t like it, but the movie did terribly, so they went full out.”

As though she heard the voices of her friends, Haneul, who was on a call in the audience seats, raised her head to look at the stage. The moment Jungah made eye contact with Haneul, she smiled faintly and nodded. She quickly took her friends observing Haneul behind the curtain.

“Jungah, you said you watched this, right? How was Han Haneul’s acting?” Sinhye asked.

“It wasn’t bad. Her action was good too. But nothing really stood out. In the first place, she didn’t appear in any of the dramatic parts.”

“Really? So she’s not bad, but not entirely good either?”

“Honestly speaking, yes.”

“So senior Maru called just the right person.” Sinhye crossed her arms. “I mean, would an actress that anyone can name come to a place like this? It’s just as senior Maru said, we’re not doing this as a volunteer activity; this is supposed to be a stage. She must be an actress on our level.”

After hearing that, another person spoke,

“I’m starting to feel worried. Are you sure she isn’t going to be worse than Jimin?”

“That’s likely. Jimin practiced a lot. Even if she’s an actress who’s had her debut in a commercial movie, she shouldn’t be familiar with doing a play, you know?”

Sinhye opened her arms and pointed around.

“This is live. There’s no camera and making a mistake doesn’t mean we can just cut and start over.”

“Isn’t that what senior Maru told us before?” Jungah said with a chuckle.

Sinhye shrugged. “In any case, I feel that that person sitting proudly over there might be taken aback. She might look leisurely right now, but acting on stage is quite different from acting in front of a camera.”

“I think we might be able to get those presents from senior Maru.”

“Don’t be like that to someone who came all the way here. I think it was because of her pride that she mentioned tests and the like. In any case, it is true that she’s a senior who has debuted before us, isn’t she?”

Her friends agreed that they should just laugh even if Haneul’s acting turned out to be worse than they expected.

Jungah agreed to that. What was important was performing the play without a problem next week after all.

“What if she’s worse than we expected?” one of them said.

“At that point, we’ll really have to quit or edit the whole play.”

“I guess we’ll have to hope that she does well. Otherwise, it’ll be a massive pain.”

“I’m sure she’ll do as good as us. She’s an actress after all. Above all, senior Maru recommended her.”

“Yeah. I’m not sure about anything else, but if senior Maru brought her here, we should try trusting her at least.”

When they were about done talking, Maru came back. Jungah came out to the center stage and spoke to Haneul,

“We’ll start the play now.”

“Okay. Even if you make mistakes midway, don’t stop and just keep going on.”

“We won’t make mistakes.”

“I like that kind of confidence. I look forward to it.”

Junah stepped off the stage and gave the signal. Two of her friends, who were acting in the first scene, came up on stage. The play they were doing this time was ‘Story of Lovers.’

The core point of this play was to comedically display the fight between a couple. The main topics were those that might be uncomfortable for some couples, but likely came up at some point.

Of course, as the play was about comedy, it didn’t involve any serious problems.

The most apt description of it would be a sitcom version of over-the-top dramas.

“So you’re going to go to Jeju island with just her?”

“Is there a problem with that?”

“Are you crazy? Even if you’re just friends, you’re a guy and she’s a girl. And you want to go on a two-day trip?”

“I’ve known her for years. What you’re thinking will never happen.”

“Sure, in words at least.”

“Why are you doing that again? You’re making me tired.”

“Tired? This is something to be tired about? Shall I ask around? How many girlfriends would allow their boyfriend to go on an overnight trip with a girl they were close to since young?”

“Forget it. Don’t you see from how I’m telling you everything? If I really had feelings for her, I wouldn’t have told you and gone in secret.”

“Don’t give me that nonsense. Anyway, if you’re going to go, then it’s over between us.”

“Minseon.”

“Don’t think about it. I’m serious.”

As the two of them left the stage after their act, Jungah came onto the stage. Jungah had the role of communicating with the audience. The name of her role in the play was ‘girl representative.’ Naturally, there was a ‘boy representative’ as well.

“The man’s out of his mind, isn’t he? He has a girlfriend, so how dare he go traveling without her?” she said to Haneul, the only person in the audience. In the previous performance, a couple who came to watch got into a squabble over their opinions. Jungah was in charge of maintaining a suitable atmosphere in the audience and smoothly introducing the next part.

There were many things for her to think about because her role required her to see the reactions of the people and respond accordingly.

“If she really trusts him, don’t you think you can let him go?”

Haneul played the role of the audience when she thought she wouldn’t respond. Jungah nodded and responded. This was one of the expected scenarios.

She responded moderately and called the next set of characters onto the stage. It was the scene where the girlfriend who was telling off the boyfriend was drinking with another guy friend of hers. The whole play was composed like this: to have the characters say a model answer and then do the exact thing they said not to, so as to induce laughter from absurdity.

They did not use a format that clearly differentiated the good from the evil. If it was clearly divided, the whole play would become stiff and the responses from the audience would be bad as well.

Her friends acted with much more energy than usual. Although it was just practice, they seemed excited that they got to act with Maru. Their desire to show Haneul what a play is like must have played a role as well.

“Please continue on to the curtain call,” Haneul said after the play ended.

The actors came up on stage in turns to bow, and all the actors bowed in unison at the end.

Haneul applauded after watching until the end.

“Is this an original play?”

“No, it’s an existing one. We changed it up slightly, but the overall structure is the same.”

“I see. First of all, I like the structure. I like how the story changes at a point where the audience might find it uncomfortable.”

“The play is meant to be enjoyed after all.” Jungah smiled before asking, “How was our play?”

“I really enjoyed it. The stage was good too, save for that one awkward person over there,” Haneul said as she pointed at Maru.

Maru, who had become an ‘awkward person,’ looked as if he was about to cry as though he was wronged.

“But some of the parts are not as good as they could be. I might be overstepping my boundaries, but could you give me some of your time?”

Haneul stood up and moved in front of the stage.

“May I go up?”

“Yes, sure.”

Haneul got on the stage. Jungah inwardly exclaimed. Seeing her from up close, Haneul’s proportions were unreal. She thought that celebrities were something else after all.

“There is no answer to acting, right? So what I’m about to show you are all just proposals.”

“Uhm, before that, are you willing to work with us?” Jungah asked first.

“Yes. It’s not entirely terrible. Above all, I liked the energy.”

The answer was rather vague. Sinhye, who had been silent this whole time, stepped in,

“Excuse me. But we also can’t stand on stage with just ‘anyone.’ Of course, while I’m grateful that you’re willing to help us, you know how it is with plays. You can’t make a mistake on stage.”

“You’re right. Naturally, all of you here must assess me too. I was going to be disappointed if you said you were going to accept me right away.”

Haneul smiled in leisure. She even looked cool for answering so refreshingly.

Her first impression wasn’t that good, but after talking for a while, she seemed like a decent person.

“As a form of assessment, why don’t we go through the play you just did, with my opinions this time?”

“If that’s the case, here’s the scr….”

Jungah held out the script. Haneul would need the script to check after all.

Haneul smiled. “No, I’m okay. I have the context in my head.”

What about the lines though? — before she could ask that question, Haneul made her move.

“Let’s have a look at the first scene, shall we?”