After Story 192
“This line from Kangseo, isn’t it a little iffy?” Haneul asked as she pressed the pen on the paper.
Daemyung, who was looking at the same part, twitched his lips.
“What about it?”
“He sounds too indifferent when he’s supposed to be expressing his feelings after breaking up with his lover. It makes me wonder if Kangseo is really the type of guy who would say such things.”
“You can’t sympathize at all as a woman?”
“That’s not it, but there’s something stuck on my tongue.”
“Isn’t that what makes it better?”
Haneul thought for a moment before putting a star right next to the line. This was a part that she would come back to later.
“Let’s have a coffee break.”
She felt sore after sitting down for two hours. She opened two instant coffee sticks and put one with some sweetener into her mug. Daemyung went with black coffee.
“You wrote the scenario, so why do you sound so unconfident?” Daemyung said as he drank some coffee.
“I can’t get a feel on how it should go. No matter how many times I do it, my confidence level suddenly drops when I work on a scenario. For other things, I’m confident in them because I did them to death, but for this, I can’t get used to it no matter how many times I do it.”
“How many times did you do it even?” Daemyung said with a smile.
Try doing all sorts of things throughout so many reincarnations that you can’t even remember how many times you did one thing; I literally did it ‘to the death.’ — Haneul swallowed the words at the tip of her tongue with the coffee.
“But is it really helpful for me to tell you all this? I don’t think we’re making any progress since we’re retorting every single element in the story.”
“That’s enough. I’m not in a hurry anyway. I’m going to polish it slowly so that everything from the writing to the shoot will be perfect.”
“A person I know told me not to put so much effort into my first attempt, saying that first attempts are bound to fail.”
“That’s not wrong, but I don’t plan to fail.”
As Daemyung said, if this was her first attempt in her life, then she would not have pursued perfection. The realm of perfection was something that only experienced people could reach. It was only right for a newbie to prepare for the next attempt while failing the first.
However, she was no rookie. She had pride as a director and could not put out inadequate work.
Maybe that required being hung up on every single detail to the point of being excessive. She did not even think about going to the next part while leaving it in a vague state.
“Did you bring the scenario that you wrote?”
“It’s in my bag.”
“What are you doing? Take it out already.”
“It’s not fun and even less helpful, you know? It’s terrible.”
Daemyung took out a clear file from his bag. Haneul took out the bundle of paper inside the file.
“I didn’t know because I never showed my work to anyone else, but this is more embarrassing than I thought.” Daemyung smiled awkwardly.
“That’s what it means to show your writing to someone else. It’s not just writing either. Showing the work you put a lot of time and effort into practically means showing your face to the world, so it’s perfectly normal to be embarrassed. But you’ll feel okay after experiencing it one or two times.”
Haneul emptied the sweet coffee in her mug in one go. Her brain had gotten stimulus from the sugar and caffeine and started reading down the text.
She looked at Daemyung a few times throughout and saw that he was waiting nervously.
“I’m not assessing anything, so don’t worry.”
“I know.”
Despite saying that, Daemyung couldn’t stop giving her glances.
“Go play on your phone or something. That’ll make you feel better,” Haneul said before going back to the text.
The story Daemyung wrote was a rather popular type of writing. And as such, it was easy to predict the placement of the characters, the story, as well as the plot design and expressions.
There was none of the superfluousness unique to writers writing for the first time. The writing smelled like an experienced writer but in a good way. So this was his first work?
It seemed that the Park Daemyung of this life was born with the talent to be a writer.
“What’s this?” Daemyung suddenly said as he looked at his phone.
“What is it?”
“There’s something on the main website of the web portal….”
Haneul looked at the phone screen. She didn’t know what to look for, so she glanced at Daemyung.
“Look at the thumbnail right below the middle.”
Below the middle? Haneul looked there. There was a photo of a man grabbing a mic under faint lighting. When she had a closer look, she saw that it was her husband.
“Give me a sec.”
She took the phone from Daemyung and clicked on the thumbnail. It was a link to someone’s personal blog.
She read the title at the top: I can’t tell if he’s an actor or a singer. Who is this man?
“Is it an article about Maru?” Daemyung asked.
“No, it’s a personal blog from someone, but it has gained enough popularity to be put on the main site.”
Haneul moved her fingers to look at the blog post. The post, which was riddled with all sorts of ridiculous emojis, basically said this: I like actor Han Maru.
Her husband had gone to Yoo Jichan’s concert two days ago, and it seemed that he ended up singing there. Haneul played the video at the top of the post.
She put down the phone on the table and raised the volume. Daemyung also focused on it. Under the lighting, her husband started singing. A voice that she never got fed up with flowed out through the speakers.
She looked at her husband inside the screen and smiled. This was a serenade. Regardless of gender, everyone at that concert would’ve fallen for Maru’s voice.
“There’s no way this is true,” Daemyung said.
“Why?”
“I’ve known this guy for years, and it’s been excruciating to go to the noraebang with him ever since we were in high school. He didn’t know anything about singing, but he really liked it. He would scream like crazy or act all queasy. Even the girls would quietly go to the bathroom if he grabbed the mic.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. But he’s like a totally different person now. Did he receive vocal lessons while acting?”
“Lessons, sure.”
In his previous lives…
Haneul raised the volume a little more. It had been a while since she heard him sing like this. He would often propose to her while singing shyly in that voice.
After the song, there was a few seconds of nothing before a round of applause. The camerawoman’s cheers were mixed in as well. She could imagine how raved the audience must have been.
“The people there were lucky.”
“Getting to listen to Maru singing is lucky?”
“It’s quite expensive if you want to pay to hear it.”
Daemyung frowned. He was probably thinking that it was some ridiculous notion between a pair of lovebirds.
But it was the truth. She thought back to the days when her husband was a musical actor. The black market prices of his musicals towards the end of the season were nearing the level of being ridiculous.
“I think you two suit each other, quite a lot,” Daemyung said with a smile.
“The video has over 200 thousand views.”
“200 thousand is a lot. Maru should really thank the person who wrote that post.”
The comments under the blog post and under the youtube video were all full of praise. As his popularity had gone up quite a lot thanks to Case Number 0, many people recognized him as well. Many people said that it was interesting to see a new side to him.
“Looks like his payment will rise the more well-known he gets. This is a pain,” Haneul said as she put down the phone.
“It’s good for you if his payment rises. Why do you say that?”
“This scenario you and I are writing, he’s the guy I’m casting. But he’s being petty and won’t give me a family discount, so I have to pay full price, and at this rate, I think his payment will be quite considerable by the time I adapt this into a film.”
“I’m sure it’s just a figure of speech. There’s no way he’d do that for his girlfriend’s work.”
“That guy sometimes stakes his life on things he says as a joke. He’s like a total kid.”
She grabbed the scenario she put to the side again.
“Let’s get back to work. I need to make this before the main actor’s payment rises even more. I know I’m using someone else’s money, but I should do my best to save on money since I’m a creator.”
Daemyung sat upright and spoke, “Now that you mention it, who’s the person that’s paying for the production costs?”
“He’s called Na Baekhoon, and he does various businesses.”
“I feel like I heard about him somewhere.”
After fiddling with his phone, Daemyung spoke in a surprised voice,
“Is this the person?”
The person on the screen was Na Baekhoon. Haneul nodded.
“He’s famous in many industries. This guy is investing in you?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think?” Haneul answered a question with a question.
Daemyung thought about it for a long while before speaking,
“Charity?”
“No way. Park Daemyung, we’ve only known each other for three days, but isn’t your assessment of me too low? You couldn’t even look at me properly in the eyes when we first met.”
“How are those two related? Rather than that, what’s the real reason? I can understand if he was investing in your aroma business, but I don’t see what he sees in you on the movie side.”
“You really don’t see it?”
“Nope.”
“Actually, he fell for my perfect appearance.”
“...You and Maru really do suit each other. Don’t break up and live the rest of your lives together. You two are practically a match made in heaven. There’s a limit to how much you can boast.”
“You don’t believe me.”
“It’d be strange if I did.”
“Actually, he fell for my beauty. That’s why he’s giving me full support, and the same is true for Maru.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s real though.”
“You can’t write like that, people won’t get it.”
Haneul pouted before sighing.
“Fine, don’t believe it then. I would’ve thought that he was a scammer if this was my first time experiencing that. You need to know that there are all sorts of people in the world for your eyes to truly open. It’s too early for you, Daemyung.”
“Hello? You know you’re the same age as me, right?”
“Are we though?”
“Why, were you born earlier than me?”
“Not just early.”
In terms of age, I’m probably tens of thousands of times older than you — she stretched her arms out before grabbing her pen.
Her husband was going ahead of her, so she had to move busily as well.
“Should we go to the next part?” she said as she poked the paper with her pen.
* * *
If you’re unlucky, you might break your nose despite falling on your back, but if you’re lucky, you might end up finding money on the ground if you fall on your back.
Park Yeonjin truly believed that so as he looked at Maru who went to Jichan’s concert.
“I didn’t know it would become an issue like this,” he said as he looked at the article on the internet.
As Maru was an actor who also had singing skills, he became a hot topic in many places.
Due to the change in the times, agencies placed just as much importance on the internet as TV media, so the video with nearly 500 thousand views became quite helpful to Maru.
“What did?”
“What else? The video of you singing.”
“People still watch that?”
“What do you mean still? This is just the beginning. People are spreading the video around by themselves. Were you always this good at singing?”
“Originally, no… originally.” Maru smiled.
“Looks like you’ll get invited to music programs. They invite people that become quite an issue as a guest at least once.”
“I’ll do my best no matter what it is. Hyung, we can go now,” Maru said.
Yeonjin started the car. Maru, who sat in the back seat, took off his coat and started reading.
Yeonjin thought as he looked at Maru: People were bound to become loose when they earned popularity at a young age, but Maru had none of that. He didn’t have the slightest arrogance or the desire to show off. From a certain angle, he looked like a middle-aged veteran actor immune to worldly opinions.
“Can I put on a song?”
“Sure.”
He played an idol song and hummed along. It would take three hours to get to the destination. He saw Maru jerk his shoulders along with the song.
“But aren’t you going to be tired? Volunteer work will be quite hard.”
“It’s okay. Above all, Sir Yoon will be there. I’m sure it’ll be very enjoyable and not hard at all.”
“You really like him, huh? I didn’t know that.”
Looking at Maru through the rearview mirror, he had a thick smile on.
“Get some shut-eye if you’re tired. It’ll take quite some time.”
Yeonjin decreased the volume and sped up a little.
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