Life, Once Again!

After Story 235

-Director Kwon was looking for you. He said he was having fun with you around, but he’s bored now that you’re gone.

“You should hang out with him for me then, senior.”

-I’m good at everything else, but not action acting.

“If that’s not good, then everyone learning in action schools should quit. How’s the atmosphere at the set? I’ve seen a lot of heat warnings since the start of August.”

-Big brother Kwak passed out once. Apparently, he got dizzy while carrying the camera. The shoot stopped there. It was a total mess.

“Director Kwak has really good stamina though. If he passed out, then it must be really bad.”

-He pushed himself. He was away for a few days because someone couldn’t make the job for team B, and when he got back, he got to shooting right away. I heard he had less than four hours of sleep in three days.

With all that work under this weather, it wasn’t surprising that he passed out. If even the camera director was having a hard time, the rest of the production team must be having an even worse time.

“You should watch out too. They say there’s no set order for going to the afterlife.”

-Thanks so much for the encouragement. If there’s ever a funeral for me, then you can eat three bowls of yukgaejang. I’ll allow it.

Geunsoo told him to wait before talking to someone else. From what Maru could hear over the phone, he seemed to be talking to his manager.

-The shoot’s resuming.

“Have a good time.”

-I will. Oh yeah, how’s it going with what you were doing?

“I’m going to be looking at potential shooting locations now.”

-You’re already investing in production at that age, huh? It’s good to see you living a busy life.

“I should try many things out while I’m still young. Only then will I be able to catch up to people like you.”

-What’s so great about me? Also, Suyeon said we should meet up once. Let’s go to the sea before the summer ends.

“I’ll call Suyeon-noona and Ganghwan-hyung about the schedule. When does your shoot end?”

-I’ve been told I have two shoots left. If things go the way I think they will, I should have time next week.

“Then let’s meet up next week. Eating sashimi and fish stew while feeling the sea breeze. Just thinking about it makes me feel good.”

-It sure does.

Geunsoo hung up, saying that they should meet next time. Maru checked the time before calling Yoonseok. It was almost time, but he couldn’t see him around.

-I was just about to call you too. I’m waiting in front of exit 3.

“Exit 3? So you haven’t seen the message. I messaged you to come to exit 8 at the very last moment. It’s easier to turn the car around there.”

-Oh, you’re right. I’ll go to exit 8 right now. It’ll take a minute.

“Is Jiseon next to you?”

-She’s with me.

Not long later, Yoonseok and Jiseon came out of exit 8. Maru raised his hand to notify his position to the two of them.

“It’s a car driven by a celebrity,” said Jiseon, whom he hadn’t seen in a long time, as she got in the car.

He handed the two of them some drinks that he had bought while waiting.

“I typed the location into the GPS, but check if it’s the right place,” Maru said as he pointed at the address displayed on the screen. Yoonseok looked between his phone and the GPS and nodded.

“That’s the place. We need to visit about three more places after that.”

“Put your seatbelts on for now. Let’s talk as we go.”

He started the car. Apparently, Yoonseok had looked into about twenty places. He said that he had about four or five after picking suitable locations.

“The place we are going to right now should be easy to shoot in because all the stores around it have pulled out. The landlord said that it’s okay to use it for one or two months without any upfront deposit.”

“How’s the size?”

“It does feel a little big. I was originally planning for an old bookstore with piles of books throughout, but I thought it wouldn’t be bad to have cozy-looking places like independent bookstores these days.”

“It’s supposed to be a bookstore inherited from the character’s grandfather, so think about it some more. Also, the location is just as important as the character, so think about it until the end.”

“That’s why I asked you to scout out the places with me. I couldn’t fully trust myself.”

Jiseon, who was sitting in the back seat, poked her head to the front towards the passenger seat.

“Don’t forget that there’s someone behind you. If you two talk by yourselves, I’ll get mad.”

“Okay,” Yoonseok said as he pressed Jiseon on the forehead.

Maru looked at the two of them and spoke, “Nice times. There’s a sense of sweetness when you first start a relationship.”

Yoonseok and Jiseon both laughed at the same time.

“You’re still dating Haneul-unni, right?” Jiseon asked.

“That we are.”

“Are you going to go public about it?”

“We don’t plan to keep it under tight wrap, but we don’t plan to blurt it out everywhere either.”

“Don’t do it if possible. I’ve rarely seen good responses about celebrities dating. Everyone congratulates when a couple is getting married, but they’re really naggy if it’s just dating.”

“Then I guess it’s not a big problem.”

Jiseon widened her eyes and asked back, “Are you going to marry her?”

“I am.”

“Really?”

“You two are going to do it too, aren’t you?”

He looked at the two with a mysterious smile. Yoonseok tilted his head, while Jiseon twitched her nose while looking at Yoonseok tilting his head.

“You never know how things will go. You might think that you’re just dating and won’t get married, but you’ll be in a tuxedo and a wedding dress before you know it,” Maru said, “So you should treat each other well.”

“Oppa, you sounded like my grandpa just now. He says something very similar when I go talk to him during festive seasons.”

“I am quite old you see.”

He smiled and turned the driving wheel. He stopped the car after hearing the GPS tell him that they were at their destination. There were commercial buildings lined up on either side of a narrow road that was slanted upwards to a hill.

The only people he saw around were those that seemed to be local residents. If there were this few people moving around at lunchtime on a weekend, it could be considered dead as a commercial area.

There were more shops that had banner notices for lease than there were shops actually running businesses.

“I feel really sorry for the people working here, but this place suits our film a lot.”

“If we shoot the appearance before gentrification and then cast some people to be tourists, it should look pretty decent, right?”

Yoonseok told him to follow and walked ahead. They walked past the rice cake shop that had a display outside, an independent café, and a barber shop that looked at least thirty years old before standing in front of an empty shop.

“It’s this place.”

Yoonseok pushed open the glass door. Jiseon grabbed Yoonseok’s arm and spoke, “Is it okay to just barge in here?”

“I got permission beforehand. We’re allowed to go inside and have a look so don’t worry.”

As it was an empty space without anything at all, there was no lock on the door. When they went inside, Maru could smell moist concrete. He could see electrical lines on the wall that had the wallpaper removed, and there were flyers on the ground.

“This place must have been a pork cutlet restaurant before,” Jiseon said as she picked up a flyer.

The flyer, which had lost most of its color, had the menu of the shop as well as some promotional words for the restaurant.

Delicious, high-quality pork cutlets.

“Looks like running a business really is hard,” Yoonseok said as he threw away the flyer.

Maru walked along the walls of the shop. The shop was around 33 square meters. Placing a bookshelf on the left wall, a round table to display some books in the middle, and a counter on the right… it looked like it would look good.

“What do you think? Do you think we should pile up books against the walls like old bookstores or have some simple decorations instead?”

“I think it’d look better to imitate some of the well-known independent bookstores and decorate it, but if we’re to portray the complex feelings of Daejoo, then I think it should look messy…”

Yoo Daejoo. That was the name of the main character.

Yoonseok touched the wall and spoke, “It’s going to be set sometime after he inherits it from his grandfather. Only then will there be a reason for him to be attached to the bookstore thinking that it’s his and the fear that he might be asked to move out will be justified.”

“Is Daejoo someone who does his best for the bookstore? Or someone who just operates with whatever he has?”

“He should have tried to decorate it at first. Then he should have eventually just let the force of habit take over.”

“Should have? If the director is having uncertainties when we’re starting the shoot soon, there will be big trouble.”

Hearing that, Yoonseok crossed his arms. He thought for a long while before speaking again,

“Daejoo put a lot of effort into the interior design. He would’ve been like that. I think I can come up with how to decorate this place. Jiseon, come here for a sec.”

The two juniors looked around the shop and had a conversation.

Maru pushed open the glass door and left before walking around the street. There wasn’t a single customer even at the restaurant where it should be full of people.

He entered a café on the opposite side of the street. There was only one customer, a woman with a stroller. He went to the counter and ordered three cups of coffee.

“Are you planning on opening a shop?” asked the store owner as she gave him three cups of coffee.

It seemed that he was seen as a young man trying to open a business here.

“No, I’m looking for a location for a shoot.”

“Oh, a shoot?”

The owner, who was giving him the straws, flinched and looked at him closely.

“Aren’t you Han Maru?”

“What do you think?”

“You are?him. I’m a huge fan. I mean it.”

The owner covered her mouth in surprise and ducked down below the counter. She came back up with three cookies.

“You should take these as well. I baked them myself, so they should be pretty good.”

“If they’re good, I can’t take them for free. I’ll pay for them as well.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m giving them to you because I’m a fan, so just take them.”

The owner packaged the cookies into a plastic zipper bag and carefully handed them to him. He found it hard to refuse and accepted them for now.

“Are you really going to shoot over there?”

“Nothing’s set in stone yet. We’re still looking for locations.”

“You should shoot here. That way, I’ll see you a lot more often. Also, if word gets out that a film’s being shot here, people will visit too.”

The owner loudly said goodbye to the customer that left. Maru could feel that each and every customer was precious.

“As you know, this place is pretty much dead. I thought I would be okay with not having people around since the rent is cheap, but I was wrong. Money calls for more money and people call for more people. After the stores around started pulling out, the entire area just collapsed.”

“It’s a hard time to do business.”

“So don’t you ever run your own business, Mr. Han. Even celebrities fail their businesses even if they use their fame.”

“That’s true.”

Maru quietly said goodbye and left the café with the three cups of coffee. He stood in the middle of the street and looked at the café for a while.

The book of his memories started flapping. There were numerous times when he shot a film in a sparsely populated neighborhood. Among them, there were cases where the movie gained popularity and the neighborhood ended up booming as a result.

However, rather than a happy ending where the movie and the neighborhood do well, it only resulted in increased rent due to the onslaught of visitors and the true original owners of the shops being pushed out. What would happen with this film?

It was quite ironic. A movie that uses gentrification as a topic could cause gentrification.

Though, it was still unknown how much attention this work would receive.

“Hyung! I think we should go with this place,” Yoonseok said as he left the shop.

“What about the other places?”

“The landlord here said he can do 300 thousand a month.”

“The monthly rent is directly related to the price of the real estate… it seems that the landlord is having a hard time paying for the rent.”

“It’s a pity, but for us, it’s better because we can save up money. Anyway, we decided to go with this place. I talked to Jiseon about it, and I think the interior design should be finalized soon.”

Maru handed two cups of coffee to Yoonseok who seemed excited.

“Give one to Jiseon.”

Yoonseok returned to the shop after receiving the coffee.

Maru thought as he drank the coffee. If the film did well and people started flocking to this place, would the café owner smile, or would she end up crying?

“Hyung! Come quick.”

Hearing Yoonseok’s call, Maru bit on the straw and walked off.

Food typically served to visitors when they come to pay respects to the deceased at a funeral.