Life, Once Again!

After Story 56

“I mean, I’m going to an acting school myself, but when I look at them, I feel pity. They go to cram schools right after they finish school, and once they’re done with that, they’ll have to go home and revise before sleeping, right?”

“I’m sure they’re busier than most salarymen out there.”

“How many do you think are going to cram schools because they want to?”

“I don’t know. Among them, there might be some who are going to cram schools because they like math, English, physics, and whatnot.”

“Do you think such people really exist?”

“Maybe one in a hundred? Or a thousand?”

Even though the sun had long set, the signboard of various cram schools brightened up the streets, perhaps enough for cars to not turn on their headlights.

Seungah looked at the students being sucked into the cram schools lined up side by side. If she was not acting, she would be among those people.

“Miss your school subjects?” her instructor said.

“No way. Oh, were you a good student in school?”

“Me, I was about average.”

“I can believe anything else you say, but why is it that you don’t sound persuasive right now?”

“You’re joking around now that the lesson is over, huh?”

“I’m doing this only because the lesson is over.”

They walked forward, passing through the place filled with academic passion. The restaurant that this unni talked about would only appear once they left the street full of cram schools.

It was just as she was standing in front of a crossing, looking at the traffic light across the road that she saw someone familiar under the traffic lights. As it was pretty dark and far away, she couldn’t see properly.

The lights changed. Seungah smiled when she looked at the face that came closer.

“Hey, Han Maru.”

Maru, who was walking as he looked around, stopped midway.

“Choi Seungah.”

“Fancy seeing you here.”

She was about to say a few more words but then remembered that she was in the middle of the road. The traffic light was also signaling that it was about to change lights.

Maru waved as he came over. He looked like he was going to pass by just like this, so she grabbed Maru’s arm.

“Where are you going?”

She walked towards the blinking green light. Maru pointed at the other side but still followed along.

“You’re just going like that? Do you have an appointment?”

“Well, no, not really.”

“And you were just going to leave after saying hello like that?” She then turned around, “Unni, this is the guy I talked about last time. You know, the one I said I took the audition with.”

“Really?”

Unni took off her baseball cap and walked forward. She looked at Maru in order to introduce this unni to him. However, Maru’s expression was rather strange. ‘Strange’ was the only way to describe it.

Glee, confusion, surprise — after a mix of complicated emotions, it finally landed on a mysterious smile.

“Hello. My name is Han Maru.”

She didn’t even tell him, but Maru greeted her first, even going as far as to hold his hand out. It was an awkward handshake. Unni looked at Maru’s hand in interest before grabbing it.

“Nice to meet you. I heard Seungah talk about you. She said that she made an amazing friend.” Unni introduced herself as she shook the hand that grabbed his. “I’m Yang Miso.”

* * *

“I’m Yang Miso.”

He was convinced after seeing her face, but she decided to confirm it for him, so there was no need to doubt. It was indeed Yang Miso. Maru let go of her hand.

“I heard from Seungah that she has an acting instructor she’s really grateful for. This is just a hunch of mine, but I think she was talking about you.”

“Seungah, maybe the words acting instructor is written on my face,” Miso said as she rubbed her forehead. “I am teaching over there. Though, I’m not too sure how grateful Seungah feels towards me.”

Seungah, who was listening quietly, suddenly called out to her and shook her arm. The two of them looked close, throwing jokes around like this.

“You sound like a good instructor.”

“Now, it feels even better when I get flattered on our first meeting. Did Seungah ask you to flatter me?”

“No way. I’m someone who can’t lie. I just say what I see.”

From what they said, they seemed to be going out for dinner after a lesson. Seungah gestured. There was a bunch of students rushing over to cross the road.

They walked away from the traffic light and stopped in front of a phone store.

“What brings you here? You said you didn’t have any appointments. Also, didn’t you say you live in Suwon last time?”

“I’m here to watch people.”

“Watch people?” Seungah asked back in curiosity as she looked around. He looked at the students rushing over in waves.

“I was looking around other places, but I came here because I recalled the cram school street. I wanted to see what kind of faces kids these days make. Also, there’s no better place than here to look at the everlasting fatigue and depression that children have.”

No matter how many lives he had experienced, the general frame of the Republic of Korea had not changed, and the passion for education that Gangnam possessed did not change either.

It was good to receive the passion for art that the young people had around Hyehwa station, but watching the problems and pains of the era in Daechi-dong was also a good form of studying. After all, acting was about bringing out what was inside him.

The fancy lights shining down upon the whole street contrasted with the gloomy faces of the children walking below; a governor would think about policies and promises while looking at that street, while an investor might look for buildings to establish cram schools in.

As an actor, he just took in the short impression and emotions into his heart after changing them into simple elements so that he would be able to call them out whenever it was necessary.

Seungah looked at the students who were in a rush saying that they were late. “That’s true. They look energetic right now, but by about eleven, when they start going home, even I start pitying them.”

The lights changed. People started gathering under the red lights.

People ebbed and flowed. The scenery that he had seen millions if not tens of millions of times had never changed like a statue made of steel. He closed his eyes as an actor and looked at the children with the eyes of a parent for now, wishing that it wasn’t the parents’ greed but their own will that pushed their backs.

“What are you going to do once you’re done watching people?”

“I heard that there’s a popular restaurant, so I’m going to go home after eating dinner there.”

“By yourself?”

“By myself.”

Seungah looked at Miso. Seemingly having understood the intention behind that gaze, Miso spoke, “Would you like to come with us? Since you’re eating, you might as well eat with us.”

“You two can eat by yourselves. Having me might make things uncomfortable.”

“We wouldn’t be uncomfortable just because there’s one more person. Just come.”

Miso walked ahead after pressing on her baseball cap. Her charisma had not changed.

Seungah also urged him to follow and walked up to Miso. Maru looked at the two people becoming distant. After walking for a while, the two of them turned around and waved at him to hurry.

It was an offer he could not refuse. In truth, he wanted to eat with Miso the moment he saw her. He only pretended to be oblivious because he couldn’t say anything first.

He followed the two, and they arrived at a gopchang restaurant. It didn’t look like a noisy pojang-macha; it was more like a quiet café.

He sat down as he smelled the savory yet slightly unpleasant smell unique to gopchang.

“There’s quite a lot of people here,” he commented.

“It’s a popular place,” Seungah replied.

A waiter came over and handed them an apron each. They were even given some hairpins. Maru could see that there were many female customers.

“You drink beer, right?” Miso asked. They had decided to drop the honorifics before arriving.

“I’ll just have one.”

“Are you weak with alcohol?”

“I just managed to lose my alcohol belly.”

“Alright. Actors need to know how to restrain themselves before starting to work and not just accept anything people buy for them,” Miso said while looking at Seungah.

“I’m okay since I don’t gain weight easily.”

A pan of spicy gopchang sprinkled with cheese was placed on the table. From the looks of it, it looked like the tongue and brain would scream in glee, while the blood vessels would scream in fear.

Maru decided to add 30 minutes to the treadmill routine as he picked up his chopsticks. He also had a glass of beer. The fatigue from the suffering from the night before was relieved a little.

“Do you go to an acting school anywhere?” Miso asked.

Before he could reply, Seungah spoke in his stead, “Well, it’s quite funny. He doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t go to an acting school. He’s not in college, or any theater troupe for that matter. I got curious and asked him where he learned acting. Do you know what he replied with?”

“What did he say?”

“He said TV and YouTube are his teachers. At first, I thought it was funny, but when I thought about it, it’s not entirely wrong.”

Miso put down her chopsticks. “Have you really never learned it separately?”

Of course I have. I’ve learned under you hundreds of times at least — Maru reminisced the past as he spoke, “Yes. As Seungah said, I wasn’t really taught anything in particular. It was June this year that I decided to become an actor.”

Seungah stopped eating and spoke, “June? Seriously? I thought you just hadn’t learned properly but had been practicing for ages. But you never thought about acting before that and decided to be an actor in June and still displayed an act of that caliber during the audition?”

Maru shrugged instead of responding. Seungah raised her beer glass. She emptied it in one go, saying that she felt frustrated.

“Unni. I’m about to get really depressed. Did you hear what he just said? June, he said! That means he’s only in his 4th month, but he’s better than me. How does that make any sense?”

“Seungah. You should eat or get angry. Just do one thing or the other. You’re spitting.”

Hearing Miso’s words, Seungah made a dumbfounded expression and just chewed with her mouth closed. Miso seemed to know how to handle Seungah.

“Did you suddenly have the urge to do acting?” Miso asked.

Maru drank some water before replying, “You know times when you suddenly have vague aspirations like ‘oh, I want to do this’ or ‘I want to try being that’. I think that’s how acting was for me. Now that I think about it, I was more interested in the actors and their expressions and gestures than the story when I watched dramas. Perhaps I’ve always admired them.”

He made up a suitable story. Miso should know that anyone could become an actor and that what was difficult was to stay and get by as an actor. If her thought process was similar to his last life, then she would accept it.

“There are many people who become actors like that. There are people around me who were perfectly good salarymen but changed their minds to suddenly start acting one day. Admiration is a splendid source of motivation.”

Miso raised the beer bottle. While he said that he would only drink one glass, he couldn’t refuse. He looked at the golden liquid filling up his glass. He never knew that he would get treated out to a drink from Miso like this.

Was this God’s prank? Or some kind of fate that even God did not expect? He did not know.

“But is what Seungah said true? She actually has quite a big pride, so she doesn’t really praise others, especially those around her age. But she easily praised you for being better than her, which means that you must be really good. How do you assess yourself? Do you think you’re good?”

Maru sipped a bit of the beer before replying, “I’m not sure if I’m good. I don’t know where I should standardize being ‘bad’, so I don’t really know what it means to be good. But… I don’t feel embarrassed; whether it’s about me doing acting or showing my acting to others.”

There were many actors who became jealous of actors much younger than them. The converse was true. There were many actors who felt pathetic when they looked at seniors who looked to be as high as the sky.

This was why it was hard to rank actors. After all, popularity would rise and fall depending on the work.

Miso did not show much response.

The meal continued. They talked about some movies that were released recently. As they chatted, they emptied the gopchang. They even had some rice fried in the empty pan.

When the crispy scorched rice gave off a savory smell, Miso suddenly brought it up, “Can I have a look as well? At your acting I mean.”