Chapter 680

There was a quiz. The subject was math. The math teacher was known to give out hard questions, so he studied quite hard. He checked his score after the quiz ended, and he scored 80 points. Woojin, who sat next to him, also scored 80 points. Hojoon got 82. He thought that he did pretty well, but it was just so-so.

As always, he did decently. He didnt excel at anything, but he wasnt bad at anything to the point that he was pointed out for it. Whether it was studying or games or sports, he was always average. If there was one thing he could boast about, maybe it was that he never missed a class. He had the confidence to never miss a class even if it was for a cram school. He did have the desire to do better, but he always ended average or just a little above it. He was like a mass-produced item. No matter what he did, the result was always conformed to the specs.

He lied down. Although sleep overwhelmed him, he didnt want to sleep. He thought about studying or maybe playing a game. He was more than willing to do so, but his body refused to leave the bed. Haah, Haejoon sighed and covered his eyes with his arm. He didnt know what it was that he wanted to do.

Just then, he remembered an unfamiliar smile. It was from the girl sitting next to him. They had been in the same class for the semester, and it had been a few weeks since they started sitting next to each other, but the number of times he talked to that girl could be counted on one hand. There was no real reason to talk to her, and he didnt want to do that either. Actually, the more accurate reason should be that he wasnt interested. She was just one of the many classmates that he would spend the year with. Today, she made a bright smile. He had never seen that smile before.

* * *

Hearing the cut sound, Maru took his arm off his eyes and sat up. The camera director, who had been shooting from the corner, handed the camera to his assistant and exercised his shoulders.

The director is coming, said the assistant director as he opened the door.

Following that, Jayeon entered the set.

You did just as I told you to.

Thank you.

For now, your movement was according to the plan, but your mood is a little too dreary. The character known as Park Haejoon is a student that might exist anywhere. He

s not a character from a tragic story, so I think you need to adjust that tone a little.

Should I try being a little more cheerful?

Go ahead.

Maru left the set. He shook his body off lightly before waiting for the assistant directors signal. The assistant director, who was nodding while putting his finger on the in-ear monitor, shouted to him to stand by. Maru grabbed the doorknob. Following that, he got the cue sign.

He pushed the door open and went inside. He took his steps while being conscious of the camera director who was waiting on the left. This scene didnt have a single line. His only form of expression was his facial expressions, actions, and sighs. He widened his steps a little to speed up a little. He moved according to Jayeons request and sat down on the bed before starting to act.

Maru thought back to the character known as Park Haejoon. He was someone who gained comfort within the fences of ordinariness, and yet he was also an ordinary student who yearned to be like his friends that were playing outside those fences. He sometimes sought to escape from everyday life, but whenever he was given the opportunity to, he would always refrain from doing so after thinking about the realistic problems. He was dissatisfied with the repetitive life of going to school and then to cram schools, but he had no intention of expressing that. He had a sense of rejection to revealing himself, and yet he contradictorily also wished for someone to look at him and think that he was special. However, that balance was delicate and neither pulled him up nor dragged him down. Like the Earth rotating around the sun, Haejoon was just spending his school life while in orbit.

He was a character that could bring out sympathy within people. He was an ordinary person after all. However, transforming that ordinariness into acting was pretty difficult.

Acting had to contain an intention or a meaning. Actions that made up the act likewise had to have intent behind them for the people watching to focus. If the objective was to show an ordinary student as it was, there was no real reason to use an actor for it. After all, having an ordinary student do that role instead would be perfectly sufficient. There was only one reason why an actor was used. It was to show the ordinary so that it did not look ordinary. The natural act that people talked about was not supposed to be understood literally. The very act of acting itself was at the epitome of unnaturalness. When actors talked about being natural, they didnt mean that they should show what they were supposed to as it was; they meant they should show it in a convincing manner. The two might sound similar, but there was a big difference between the two. Shooting a class full of people would show a group of natural-looking students. However, people did not call that acting. It was only called acting when someone that was not a student was wearing a student uniform and convincingly expressed being a student.

To convincingly express something, the actor had to become infinitely close to the essence of the target. How would the Park Haejoon, who was analyzed and interpreted by Maru after looking at the script, act in various situations? While Maru proceeded with the act that Jayeon requested him to do, his head was looking for another form of expressing Park Haejoon. This character, who was satisfied being average, belonged to the more earnest side. From the fact that he spent time