After Story 55

"I feel like I just watched three whole movies with plot twists. It's daunting."

"You should talk more with your brother. He has really changed. I'm sure you'll find him helpful as well. He's someone who would do his best if you ask for it."

"No way."

While she said those words, she did think that he had become slightly more reliable compared to before.

"Should we go to a café and chat some more? I'd hate to break up like this."

"Aren't you busy?"

"Not at all. If I could hang out with you, I'd cancel any promises even if I did have any."

There was no reason to refuse. Honestly, she wanted to talk a lot with the woman that many girls aspired to be. It'd be great if she could hear some skin management tips too.

She had the remaining food packaged and put it in her bag before leaving the restaurant.

"Uhm, unni."

"Yes?"

"Can I ask you one question?"

"You can ask a hundred."

Bada thought back to her brother in a suit and asked, "Have you seen my brother acting?"

"I have."

"How is he? Is he good?"

Haneul did not reply. She put on a mysterious smile and walked a few steps ahead before speaking, "There's probably no one better than him, at least among his peers."

"You're joking, right?"

"Do I look like it?"

Haneul pointed at the café in front of them and walked ahead. Bada tilted her head in puzzlement before following.

* * *

When he opened his eyes, it was 9 a.m. He had missed the alarm he had set for 6. He woke his dreamy self up and went to the bathroom.

When he saw the face reflected in the mirror, he couldn't help but chuckle. It looked like he had spent several days without any sleep. The women who invaded his house during the night managed to suck the soul out of him before disappearing. He'd probably be out of it the whole day today.

He dried his wet hair and looked at the living room. It was a total mess. Empty beer bottles, which were once full, were rolling around everywhere like bowling pins after getting hit. Next to them were some snacks that weren't even finished. There was a blanket crumpled on top of the sofa and a cushion on top of a cupboard.

His cat, which liked cleanliness, slapped the snack packaging as though telling him to clean up already.

"Sweetie, I'm here!"

"Oppa! Open up!"

The two women came over without warning last night and shouted that in front of his door.

He should not have opened the door back then. He should either have pretended to be absent or induced them to go to a restaurant outside. When he opened the door, he realized that it wasn't two people outside, but two storms in the shape of humans.

He tried to stop them, but the two looked like they had a drink already and refused to relent. If Bada was by herself, he would've easily pushed her out, but he had no options when Haneul pushed herself inside.

Before he knew it, the storms landed in the middle of his living room.

"I had a glass with your kind sister."

"Unni is such a great woman. She's wasted on you."

It was 7 when he started serving the two people. Back then, he thought that he should just exchange a few words and feed them some soup to sober up before sending them home.

That was his second misjudgment and also a critical one.

"Go and buy it!"

"Buy it! Buy it!"

He set up a drinking table thinking that he should shut them up first. The bottled beer he had prepared to sip when it was really, really necessary didn't even last 10 minutes before it dried up. The dried fruits and nuts that he brought as snacks also disappeared like smoke under the hands of the two ladies.

He felt that they would even start munching on cat food if he let them be, so he had no choice but to go grocery shopping. That was at 9.

"How did you meet someone like her? I don't get it no matter how hard I think. Also, she's 1000 times better than you, so how are you going to treat her?"

"That's good, my little sister. Go, go!"

Based on previous lives, it was highly likely that Haneul and Bada would get along. Sometimes, the two of them spent more time together than he spent with Haneul as her husband.

The two of them seemed to be on similar wavelengths in this life as well as they got along really well. Bada cherished Haneul like she was her daughter after many struggles, while Haneul fawned over Bada blatantly.

Considering their ages, their roles seemed to have been switched, but that was probably his wife's scheme. She was a smart one that won over his sister to her side.

It was after midnight when the two chatterbox storms had left. He sent them home in taxis before returning home and falling over on his bed, thinking that even a military march of 500 kilometers would be less taxing.

"Don't open the door recklessly in the evening, okay?" he said to the cat that stared at him before closing the door. Looking at the clean living room made him have some peace.

He turned on the TV and brewed some coffee with coffee sticks. He changed the TV channel to a news channel as he drank it.

-Next up, some entertainment news. The drama 'Castle' will undergo a remake in Japan. First, it was exported, and now it's being remade. The Korean Wave blowing over Japan has not cooled down yet.

He increased the volume a little. The drama industry was flowing in a similar direction to when Koren culture was booming. From the look of things, things like K-POP and webtoons, which were only considered popular domestically, would soon make up a portion of cultural capital.

While it was nothing compared to the money being thrown around in games, if the market kept up, the situation should change.

He thought about his previous lives, looking for a time when the flow of events was similar. While it was dangerous to have blind faith in statistics, he couldn't deny that it was something that could be referred to.

"Web dramas should be starting soon, and video adaptations of webtoons should start soon as well."

He could be wrong, but he decided to base his actions with those possibilities open. In the film industry, there were already three films adapted from webtoons. While their popularity was barely enough to break even, at least they did not fail miserably. When he looked it up on the internet, he saw the news that some production companies had bought the rights to some popular webtoons.

Money was always quick. There was a precedent that it didn't fail, so investors would start moving as well. The open-minded actors would take up anything, whether the original was based on webtoons or whatever, as long as the synopsis was good, but some actors would probably be against the idea of the original being a webtoon and stay away from it.

There were many such actors even when he was an actor in his previous life. They didn't feel any rejection towards adapting printed manhwa illustrated by those called masters, but they couldn't easily reach out to webtoons, which looked relatively light-hearted in comparison.

However, the trend would change soon. This would happen also in the drama industry. The start would be dramas that focus on realism, and animated production elements would be added on top. And just like that, webtoon-based dramas would also be born.

Whether webtoons would continue to be used or be thrown away would be up to whether they were successful or not.

Maru read some webtoons that had their rights sold, as well as some similar types of webtoons. He chose a character that he would be able to do in those titles and wrote some character notes. He had to do this while he was still an aspiring actor, which was almost closer to being unemployed so that he did not miss the opportunity when it did arrive.

The two genres that the Korean film industry was notoriously bad for were thriller and sci-fi. That fact had never changed even in his previous life.

However, from some time onwards, the notion that 'sci-fi is no good, but thriller might just work' would start taking root, and in this life, there was an event that brought that notion in around 2006.

At the center of the shift in thinking was the protagonist of the film titled 'Breathing Sound'.

Since then, the film industry had changed from having a mafia-comedy released once every quarter to having a thriller released every quarter.

Maru looked up 'Infiltration' on his phone. That film also interpreted the tension between North and South Korea in a thriller style. There were many opinions that thriller movies were outdated ever since they started being released frequently, but Infiltration had received applause from both the public and the critics.

Meaning, the thriller trend should continue.

Maru looked up some pieces with strong colors of being hard-boiled. He also took some characters from those titles.

The act he wanted to do was something he had to think about after he had gained a reputation. Right now, he had to put on the mask that the market and the public wanted him to put on.

As he personally preferred heavier titles with no elements of comedy, making a character note wasn't that boring. He would write down a paragraph, stand up and try acting it, and then separate between the various characters and adjust his acting so that they didn't overlap.

He had come up with various different characters for many different genres like he was intending to be a jack of all trades. Even then, he did not stop practicing romantic comedies as rom-com was an immortal genre that would never phase out in the country of Korea. Nay, romantic comedies were treasures that would continue to be adapted as long as humans shared love.

Man A, who sweet-talked his way out of everything; man B, who always caused trouble because of what he says; man C, who's usually mischievous but becomes serious when necessary.

He practiced characters that would be like the spice in food to death so that he could display it upon request. He used a comfortable voice to voice out various characters before stopping when he felt the cat walking around by his feet. It was 5 p.m. It was also time to feed the noble Lord Kitty.

He fed the cat some expensive cat food that he bought with the money he got as a dog model and organized his notes. Time was passing surprisingly fast. Even though there was a nigh-infinite amount of time in his head, the flow of time had become quicker, never slower.

He was about to open the note in his hand feeling disappointed before stopping. Taking a break was just as important as practicing. He turned off all the lights in the house and closed the curtain.

He lay down still on the floor and looked up at the ceiling.

Whenever some trivial thought came to mind, he reminded himself of a rocking chair. He focused his mind on the rocking chair swaying back and forth. He waited for his sharpened senses and emotions to become blunt again. He even stayed still when the cat stepped over him.

His body which had boiled up like a kettle started cooling down. He wasn't thinking about anything, but he knew that this process would consolidate his acting. It was a method unique to Han Maru that he had found out through numerous experiences.

After an hour of break, he stood up again. He never felt more relaxed. He took out a banana and some soy milk and left the house.

Now it was time to go watch people.

His destination was Gangnam, Seoul.

That place was like the playground of trendsetters, and it was the perfect place to study people.

* * *

"Think before you act. Don't do it reflexively. You're not at that stage yet. If you're arrogant enough to think that you're good enough, then you'll fall apart soon. You have to think about why I keep telling you the same words over and over again."

Seungah looked at her friend who was getting an earful. The lesson didn't end quietly today either.

"Choi Seungah."

"Yes."

"This applies to you too, so listen well."

"Yes, miss."

She got caught in the fire as well. Her friend, who came over, smiled apologetically. Seungah shook her head. They got scolded every single day, so it would be strange if she got off scot-free today.

The instructor, who was sitting on a chair, stood up. "Your body and your words play separately because you try to express what you only know inside your head instead of what is learned by your body. I have always told you, haven't I? That the basic of acting is to be natural. Whether it's stage acting, where emotional exaggeration always occurs, or camera acting, where the details will be in focus, being natural comes first. Don't try to run when you can't even walk. You'll break your nose."

The people listening to the lesson together replied 'yes' in unison.

"Let's stop here for today. Don't forget to do your homework before you come next week. Things like 'I forgot' won't work on me. If you don't do it, it'll be workouts all day that day. I'll make you into muscle kings and queens instead of actors, so keep that in mind. Finish!"

Thank you for your work — Seungah stretched her arms out and stood up.

"Choi Seungah."

All the other students left, and only she and the instructor remained in the room.

Seungah smiled and approached the instructor.

"Let's go get something to eat. I'll treat you."

"What for?"

"To commemorate the fact that you had a good audition."

"I don't even know if I passed yet."

"You said you didn't have any regrets. That's enough for now."

Seunga got her clothes and left the acting school. Students of all ages filled the streets of Gangnam today as well.

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