Life, Once Again!

Maru drank some water. His tension, which was like a taut rubber band, had now loosened. As it had been a long time since he got into character, he found himself exhausted rather quickly. Although his mental prowess had been honed endlessly, his body had not been trained enough to endure that extreme concentration.

He wasn’t worried though. This was just the process of going down a path that he had already walked before. He was thankful that he wasn’t walking down a path filled with fear and fatigue stemming from uncertainty.

After the shoot, they switched places and went outside. The new place was in front of a lake that clearly looked like it only had dead fish. From what he could hear, it seemed that the students even called it lye, saying that if they drained it, there might be some skeletons down below.

“I heard that this place is going to be emptied next year and made into a tennis court. It’s great that we can shoot the film before that. There’s no other place that’s as gloomy as here,” Yoonseok said.

Besides the lake were a university building and two benches with the paint falling off. This place clearly wasn’t managed.

DO NOT ENTER THE LAKE — even the no-entry barrier and sign had rusted.

“It’s killer at night. It’s like an urban legend.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” Maru sat down on the bench. He did not dust it off. Lee Jungho wouldn’t have the leisure to do something like that.

It was not his method to get into the character once the camera started rolling. He wasn’t that good.

Whenever his juniors asked ‘You’re amazing, senior. How can you get into your character so quickly?’, he only had one answer for them: I am like a turtle as I cannot do it quickly, so I simply prepare before the race starts.

Students were gathered on one side. They were the ones who were with him in the lecture room. Even though they didn’t have any more shoots, they did not scatter and instead followed them.

“They want to keep watching you act. But I’d better send them away, right?”

“I’d be thankful if they stay. Tell them to take photos of me and promote me. Who knows? It might be helpful.”

“I was just worried that they might bother you when acting.”

“If I can’t act just because a few people are watching me, I might as well not be an actor.”

Maru took out some money from his wallet.

“Go and buy some snacks with this. They’re friends who are helping you out, so you can’t just let them be like that, can you?”

“I’ll buy it.”

“Accept this while my offer still stands.”

Jiseon left in Yoonseok’s stead, telling Yoonseok that the director should focus on the shoot. He and Yoonseok analyzed the scene together. Maru originally tried to push his ideas with confidence, but Yoonseok kept asking questions, and as he knew the worries of a beginner, he did not hold back on giving advice.

“Is there a style of acting you want me to do?”

“This is a monologue while looking at an illusion of Mijin, so I want it to feel stiflingly sad, so much so that it looks overboard. Only then will it display how important Mijin was to Jungho.”

Maru pushed his fingers into his hair and softly scratched his head. “And?”

“Let’s speak again after I see how it goes. I don’t think I’ll have anything to say though.”

“Tell me immediately if I don’t live up to your standards. If I leave the frame created by the director, it’ll look terrible during editing no matter how good it looks now.”

“Don’t worry. That won’t happen. Besides everything else, your acting is much above my expectations. I’m not worried about you being insufficient. I’m worried that I might have too many options.”

“You’re quite proficient in handling actors. Actors will like it if you tell them that.”

“I mean it. Anyway, I thought it’d feel embarrassing to say something like this, but it turns out I can say it normally.”

“That just goes to show how passionate you are about this work. A parent can go to any lengths for their child to do well. There’s a reason why directors start shouting when they start shooting. It’s a struggle to create a masterpiece. Though, there are times where it goes overboard and creates an adverse effect instead.”

“Then I guess I should do my best not to be like that.”

“To my eyes, you don’t look like the type of person who’d rebuke people. You’re someone who would stay quiet and just reshoot multiple times over. Sometimes, directors like that are even scarier. They won’t let go of actors during the shoot. They’re like leeches.”

Yoonseok, who was turning around, suddenly spoke,

“Are you sure this is your first piece, hyung? No matter how I think about it, I don’t think you’re a beginner.”

“I’m only saying plausible-sounding things. So don’t take it to heart. It might be dogshit philosophy.”

He opened the script. He read the things that he had written down without any blank spaces. Writing down his thoughts on the script with a pen became something like a rule. He would probably not be able to act with a clean script. He had even indexed each page with stickers, depending on the emotions felt by the character.

Glee, hatred, anger, sorrow, vanity, longing; he categorized similar emotions into similar colors so that he could refer to them later. Even if it was some other piece, he would probably never change his way of handling scripts.

“Oppa, wait a second.” Jiseon approached him. She was currently acting as the assistant director, as well as being in charge of costumes, makeup, and the scripter, pretty much all the important roles. At this point, it was more likely that Jiseon collapsed from fatigue before Yoonseok did.

“We’ll fix your makeup again, and also your hair. It’s been pressed down because of sweat. Also, you need to pull down your sleeves a little more. You didn’t roll it up that far in the lecture room.”

“Thanks for telling me that.” Maru unrolled his sleeves a little.

Jiseon was watching out so that there weren’t any mistakes in the props or the like.

“Haneul-unni is coming tomorrow, right? She said she wasn’t available on weekends, but I guess that got resolved?”

“It looks like she handed her work to her coworker. She said she could do a Saturday so I scheduled it right away.”

Jiseon told him to raise his head. She looked at his face for a while before nodding in satisfaction. “It’s done now.”

Maru handed her the script he was looking at. He could see that the camera was almost finished being installed. The shoot should begin soon.

He clasped his hands and looked at the ground as he muttered his lines. He kept reminding himself of his lines until the lines were glued to his mouth.

Just like everything, acting had an order as well. The first thing was to learn the script that contained the director’s intent to the fullest. Bringing out the uniqueness of an actor came after that. Displaying one’s skills without being able to show what the director wants was like good-looking inedible fruit.

“We’re ready now,” Yoonseok said.

Maru pressed between his eyes before eyeing the director.

“Scene 4-1. Take 1.”

The acrylic plate that was being used as a substitute slate was removed from the camera.

Maru lowered his head for a moment before raising it again. He looked at the lake in front of him to calm his nervousness. His ears picked up the director’s words. It was a signal telling him to put Han Maru away and take out Lee Jungho.

“Mijin.” He looked at a point in mid-air. It was a spot he had decided on before he started acting.

Mijin was there. The lover he so missed, the girl whose body had turned cold and buried underground had appeared before him. He knew. While he was dazed in the lecture room, he was not a mental patient. He wasn’t crazy enough to believe that a dead person had come back to life.

Death was the end. Mijin’s body, having entered the dirt, would slowly be decomposed by various microbes, and her body would be infested with all sorts of insect larvae before leaving behind only her bones. His knowledge was not lenient enough to allow the revival of a human whose vital activities had stopped. He knew the clear truth: what was in front of him was the crystallization of his fantasies and delusions.

So what? He ran anyway. He stood up from the bench and ran. Although he tripped midway, he raised his head. Mijin would disappear again if he missed her. He tried his best not to feel the pain, afraid that the illusion would break while his brain analyzed the pain from his body.

Fortunately, Mijin was still there. He staggered his way over and reached out to her. His hand slashed through empty air. Despite that, Mijin was still there. He couldn’t touch her or feel her, but he didn’t care. He could be satisfied with just looking at her.

“Mijin.” A burst of laughter escaped him.

He sat down cross-legged. When he did, Mijin sat down with him. His dry breath circulated around in his chest before leaving his mouth. After spitting out a dry breath, he spoke, “Hey, Jung Mijin. Did you come here because you wanted to see me?”

Mijin did not respond. That was natural, as she was just an empty illusion created by his cerebral cortex. She could not speak or smile, no different from a doll. Nay, a doll could be touched, so she was something even worse than a doll?

“You died, you know? Stupid girl. Why did you come out that day? How could you come out just because I called you? You should’ve told me that it was late and that we should meet tomorrow. Hey, stupid. Why did you come out without a word that day, huh?”

It was a grumble and also a confession. He had not told Mijin’s parents the truth about how he called her that day. He told them that they made an appointment beforehand. It was an escapist excuse. He just told them that he had no direct relationship with her death.

“Jung Mijin. Should I go there as well? I mean, you really hate being lonely. It’s not like I have a lot of friends either. Even if I die, who’ll be sad for me? How about it, huh? It’s okay, isn’t it?”

From some moment onwards, he was crying. He started trembling uncontrollably starting from his chin and that spread through his shoulders and then to his hands. He stifled his cry with his hands. His body curled up and leaned forward.

“Mijin. Goddammit, Jung Mijin. Say something. Please.”

He probed out amidst his blurry vision. Mijin had disappeared and was no longer there. He could see the lake in front of him. Perhaps he could be a little closer to her if he crawled in there? — he stroked down his face, which had become messy with tears and drool, and crawled towards the lake.

He had a strong impulse: just one step, just one step into the dark water would make him comfortable.

Just as he reached the no-entry sign, someone rushed over and held him back. He struggled. This was probably the last time that he, a coward since birth, had gained the courage to do something. If he turned around here, he would never be able to meet Mijin again.

He tried to pull himself out but it was to no avail. His body soon regained his rationale. His mind had also judged the situation. The heat died down in an instant.

Being dragged away, he stared at the lake. Mijin was staring at him with an expressionless face. To him, however, it looked like she was resenting him.

“Cut! Cut! Cut!”

Maru calmed down his breathing, which had gotten excited, and looked at the people that were on him. The one with glasses had his glasses fall off, and the other guy’s shirt had become crumpled.

“Sorry. I went overboard, didn’t I?”

“N-no. It’s okay.”

The man with glasses stepped away from him. Hey, that guy’s no joke — he said to the other guy.

Maru’s sensitive nerves picked up that small sound.

“Hyung.” Yoonseok came over.

Maru clutched his head, which felt dizzy because of all the shouting, and looked at the director.

“I think you’re crazy.” The director smiled and dusted him off.