Chapter 122

Chapter 122

“Whatcha thinking about?”

“Oh, Senior, you’re here?”

Junmin stopped Ganghwan from standing up from his seat .

“Did you eat?”

“Yes, but I’m not one to turn down a free meal . ”

“Your intestines are massive, as always . What are you looking at?”

“This? I had an audition recently . ”

“Audition? For what?”

“It’s not for me, but the amateur class . They have a lot of motivation, so I didn’t want to give them roles and make them stick with it . I made them audition for their roles . ”

“Hmm . ”

“A few of them made up their minds about coming into this industry, so I really tried to make it official . They did really well . They looked out of the box a lot when it came to their character analysis, probably because they’re young . ”

“It’s probably because they didn’t know, rather than them being young . ”

“Again with that? Just look at them well for once . Anyway, I chose the roles, but one character’s still iffy . ”

“Side character or the main?”

“The main . All four girls tried for it and I was able to fail two right away, but the other two are a bit concerning . ”

“Looks like you’re putting a lot of work into this when you said you were going to go at it casually . ”

“That was the plan, but it became really fun . Plus, I’m just about done with the play I was in, too . I’m about to go back to the poor life . ”

“I’ll buy you a meal, so don’t starve yourself . ”

“Of course . I’ll stick to you for meals as much as I can . But anyway, I’m worried about who to take between these two . It’s a test in the end, but it’s still a chance to act in the Myungdong Art Theater . You can’t pass this up if you’re an actor . ”

“Want me to take a look at them?”

“Do you have the time?”

“Well, I’m here already, so might as well . ”

“Why don’t we wait for them as we have a little dinner?”

“Ugh, again with food… Fine . ”

* * *

“Want to get a chicken skewer?”

Her eyes widened at the sound of chicken, just thinking about it made her drool . She remembered her mom talking about being unable to eat chicken during her pregnancy . Something about how being deprived of chicken only made her mom end up liking it more in the long run .

“Medium spice, right?”

“Yeah . ”

“Just a little bit of cheese?”

“Yeah . ”

She nodded almost subconsciously before turning to look at Maru oddly . He knew her preferences too well…

“What?”

“It’s nothing . ”

They might just have similar tastes, so whatever . Now that she thought about it, there were a lot of instances like this, Maru was always detailed about the small stuff . He always chose things that she liked, making her wonder when she talked about it to him .

“Here you go . ”

The two of them crossed the streets of Myungdong . She had a slightly-burnt chicken skewer in one hand and Maru’s hand in the other . After their confession, they started holding hands a lot more .

“It’s cold . You should’ve worn thicker clothes . ”

“This much is fine . ”

“Look at you, you’re sniffling already . ”

Maru told her to wait for a second . He walked into a store nearby before coming out with a pink little hat . She liked it the moment she saw it, so she stayed still as Maru put it on . It was warm, which induced a little smile out of her .

“Let’s go . We’re going to be late . ”

* * *

Maru jumped a few times to loosen himself up, feeling the hardwood floor under him . Their character roles would get assigned today . After that, they would go straight into practice for a month and then they would go on stage . The practice with them switching roles every time would end today .

“How is it? You think you can get the main role?”

She shook her head at his question .

“Yoojin’s good . I’ll have to give up this time . ”

“What the, you’re just letting it go?”

“I don’t want to put so much effort into something I can’t do . I’m going to do my best with delinquent number three, though . ”

She sounded a little depressed . Three days ago, she competed with three other girls for the role of Seulmi, the main character of the play . The other kids saw the girls act and judged themselves, Ganghwan took those opinions into consideration to come up with a final decision . He was quick with all of the other roles, but he was really taking his sweet time with the main character .

“He said he’d let us know by today, right?” she asked, stretching her arms to the side .

Her body was bending smoothly like a yoga instructor .

“Since today’s the day we start doing runs, yeah . You’re really flexible, by the way . ”

“Do you even know how much I stretch at night? Flexibility needs to be practiced really hard . ”

She bent her back backward with a small groan . Maru smiled . So she’s been maintaining it from a young age . She bent her back further and put her hands to the ground . Her shirt started slipping a little bit, revealing the white skin underneath . Maru quickly took off his jersey to cover it .

“You need to be careful . ”

“Of what?”

“ . . . . . . . ”

He didn’t know what to say, especially with her sounding so innocent . She threw his jersey back at him, Maru caught it with one hand as he watched her . She was around 164cm tall . She would grow up to 170 when she enters high school . Her arms and legs were quite long, making her look pretty beautiful despite still being in a growing phase . Now that he thought about it, she was always very proud of her body more so than anything else . She always loved getting compliments about it even though she tried not to show it .

‘Though . . . ’

Maru scratched his eyebrows as he thought back to their first night, it was around eight months after they started going out together . She laughed when he asked to go on a one night trip with her and bought a condom from a nearby convenience store, Maru could remember laughing at how bold she was .

He rented a pretty expensive cottage for the two of them and had his first time with her there . He couldn’t remember what they talked about or where that was . But he remembered one thing she said back then: Why don’t boobs get fat?

“Whatcha thinking about?”

“ . . . Nothing . ”

“Why do you look so suspicious, then?”

She walked up to look at him, with her long hair draped over her shoulder . This was really bad timing, he could see her body from back then getting overlapped with her right now . Maru couldn’t help but look away, this was a little too much right now, especially looking at her adult body overlap with her younger self… it felt like a crime, somehow .

“What the . ”

“Just finish your stretches . ”

Maru pretended nothing was wrong . He saw her everything, but that was in his past life . He didn’t want to have to explain what he was thinking to her right now .

“You’re all here?”

Ganghwan walked in from the back door, Junmin was following close behind him . As soon as they got on stage, they called her out with Yoojin .

“Is it these two?”

“Yes . ”

What were they talking about? Junmin put a hand over his chin as he looked over the two female students .

“Why don’t we take a look?”

“Sure . Alright guys, act out Seulmi in front of us . Yoojin, you go first . This is where we make our last judgment, so work hard . ”

It looked like Ganghwan ended up asking Junmin for help .

“Should I begin now?” Yoojin asked confidently .

As expected of her . Yoojin had confidence in her acting and she had the skills to support it . Yoojin’s greatest strength was in her pronunciation, Ganghwan admitted that as well . She was incredibly at conveying language . Maru sometimes saw her practicing her pronunciation holding a pen in her mouth, her skills right now were surely something born out of hours of hard work .

The character Seulmi was very headstrong, a strong girl who always got into a conflict with the delinquents . There were a lot of scenes where the character would lecture the delinquents . In those scenes, Yoojin looked more like Seulmi than anyone else .

“Is it really that fun to bully kids? Look at what you guys are doing . This isn’t a play! It’s violence . What, you’re going to glare at me? Planning on hitting me too? Fine! Come at me! But I won’t stay quiet . You know what I’m like, don’t you? I’m going to spread rumors about what you did across the entire school . Come on, let’s go!”

She said her lines as if Junmin was a delinquent standing in front of her . She was good . Then again, she was a child actor . Maru had to wonder what the world of the pros looked like when even the child actors were already this good .

Yoojin stepped back with a huff . Junmin and Ganghwan talked briefly and it was now her turn to act . She could’ve picked out a different scene for her character, but she ended up choosing the scene Yoojin did . That was very like her . Ganghwan and Junmin talked again after she finished .

“Yoojin should take Seulmi’s role . ”

“Thank you,” Yoojin said with a smile .

The girl had a very satisfactory smile on her face . On the other hand, she looked very dejected, but not defeated . She probably saw this coming .

“Please take good care of delinquent 3 . ”

“I’ll do my best . ”

“And that’s that with the roles . We’re going to work our asses off for the next month before the play happens . Ah, were the prelims for the winter finals starting next week?”

“Our region’s next week, but the region to the south of us already started,” one of the male students answered .

Since they were all from an acting club, they knew information like this very well . The winter competition was backed by theater companies and various other entertainment companies . As a result, it had quite a bit of prize money compared to all other high school competitions . Aside from that, everything was the same as the summer nationals . The prelims were regional and the main event will be held in Seoul .

“I understand that you’d be more worried about your competition than this . You did volunteer for this as well though, so don’t get too lazy . I hope none of you would act like a third rate just because the audience is watching for free . ”

The kids all nodded grimly at Ganghwan’s words since both the winter nationals and the play at the Myungdong Art Theater deserved great attention .

“I don’t know if you still remember this, but a very important guest will be coming as well . You’ll have to do well . ”

Ganghwan smiled proudly . Right then, Junmin tapped Ganghwan’s shoulder and whispered something into the man’s ear . Ganghwan stepped back in surprise, saying “Really?” quite loudly .

“Guys, focus a lot on the winter nationals . You can put your leftover energy into this thing afterward . Got it?”

Ganghwan suddenly changed his words . By the looks of things, the so-called very important guest was no longer coming . The students all suppressed a little laughter .

“Now that we have our roles… We should do a little celebration . ”

Ganghwan turned to look at Junmin with a mischievous grin, Junmin shook his head before taking a seat in the audience seats .

“So, what will you be eating?”

Aha, so that was what it was . Maru looked between Ganghwan and Junmin . The former was jumping around happily and the latter was shrugging in mock defeat .

“Yes! Guys! Lord Big Senior is going to buy a meal for us! Let’s practice hard and get some good food!”

Clap! That was the signal of the start of practice .

* * *

In the end, the group ended up going for pork belly after Ganghwan’s incessant nagging . Maru didn’t mind, personally . Free food was free food .

“Yeah, I’ll be late . I’ll have dinner, so don’t worry . ”

She closed her phone, she was probably calling her mother .

“I should drop by to say hi some time . ”

“To who? My mom?”

“Yeah . Since I’m your boyfriend and all . ”

“You’re crazy . If mom sees you… Ugh, I don’t even want to imagine it . She’s going to ask for more information, like, every night . ”

“That just makes me want to go even more though?”

“Don’t you dare!”

She glared at him murderously . Then again, his mother-in-law was pretty sadistic, in a way . Maru remembered getting nervous as hell whenever he visited during holidays .

In any case, the group ran straight over to the barbeque place . It was 9 pm on a Sunday . As a result, the restaurant was filled with people . Three tables were empty, thankfully . Junmin and Ganghwan took their seats on one of the tables, and the 12 students split up between the other two tables . They ordered and waited for their food to arrive .

“Maru . ”

“Yeah?”

It was Yoojin . The girl was sitting on a different table, but she was right next to him before he knew it .

“What’s your phone number?”

“My number?”

“We’re a couple, so I need to know . ”

Couple? That threw Maru off for a couple of seconds . But it didn’t take long for him to realize that his character in the play had a romantic interest with Yoojin’s character .

“I might message you often for questions . ”

“Sure . Whatever makes you happy . ”

Maru glanced at her after taking Yoojin’s phone . She was putting a lettuce wrap into her mouth, completely uninterested in what was currently happening .

‘Well, that’s very like her . ’

Maru put his phone number into Yoojin’s phone .