‘Doesn’t look like it leaks.’

Maru checked the container behind the school from the inside. It rained quite a bit last night, a sign of the coming spring. Normally he would’ve enjoyed the rain with no worries, but the container demanded his attention. There were many wooden props inside, even a bit of humidity inside the container could easily make them rot. Out of worry, Maru arrived early at school to check.

“Eh? Senior! Hello!”

He heard a loud voice from behind him in the middle of his analysis, behind him was Bangjoo.

“You were worried too?”

“Yes. How is it? Is it leaking?”

“Nope, it’s all good. The waterproof paint is doing its job very well, we just need a fan inside to lower the humidity.”

The container didn’t come with its own fan, so they needed to check it on a regular basis, they’d have to keep airing it out whenever it rains. Mm, a schedule may be necessary.

“You’re surprisingly detailed, by the way.”

Bangjoo at first glance looked very disorganized, the type that would meet every problem with pure energy. But Bangjoo managed to catch onto a problem that even Daemyung didn’t notice.

“I started paying attention to stuff like this once I started living alone. Stuff like if I left the boiler on, if I turned off the gas, and such. I thought about this as it rained yesterday.”

Bangjoo smiled.

Living by yourself well, instead of just ordering food every day was a lot more difficult than one might expect.

“You said you started living by yourself this year?”

“Nope, the first year of middle school, to be exact. Grandma’s health started deteriorating around then, so my parents moved down to Jeju with her then. I lived with my sister around that time, but… she practically lived at work.”

“Amazing. So you’ve lived alone for four years. Can you cook?”

“Of course. I wanted to show off my skills when I invited all of you last time. I’m very sad I couldn’t.”

Bangjoo really was something else. He was as polite as he could ever be, but he never ground himself down. He was very confident anywhere, he could make people like him just with his gaze. If that personality of his could shine on stage, the stage would be his.

“Your sister must trust you a lot if she lets you live by yourself at this age. I’d have been worried sick if I were her.”

“...W-who knows. My sister is a complete mystery, so I have no idea what she thinks of me.”

Come to think of it, Bangjoo always became awkward whenever he talked about his sister. He always got quiet whenever her name got mentioned on the table.

“Do you have a bad relationship with her? Ah, if it’s personal, you don’t have to talk about it.”

“That’s not the case. No, we do fight a lot, but she never gets me mad. It’s more like I can’t, she’s very weird. Our parents gave up on her as well. She’s just… well, she’s incredible.”

“I don’t get it, but alright.”

“She just can’t be compared to normal people. She’s a monster.”

Bangjoo frowned like he just bit on a bitter persimmon. It piqued Maru’s curiosity. Just what did she do?

“Eh? You were here.”

Daemyung arrived just before class started, as expected of the boy.

“No problems?”

“Nope, we’ll just have to regularly check on it.”

“Phew, thank goodness. I was worried since last night. Morning, Bangjoo.”

“Good morning, senior!”

Bangjoo shouted as loudly as ever.

* * *

5 o’clock. The acting club all gathered on the fifth floor.

“The instructor will be here in thirty minutes, so let’s stretch a little bit? Here, follow Daemyung.”

Daemyung was good at teaching softly. Teaching was a skill, not many people could unravel their thoughts into words that were easy to understand. Daemyung was good at understanding things and also had an observant eye. He was a stand-in instructor for whenever the actual instructor was gone.

“We’ll do abdominal breathing first. Take a deep breath and once you feel your lungs full, push it downwards. That’s how you put pressure on your diaphragm so that you can take a deeper breath. Relax your shoulders and feel your larynx moving downwards.”

Everyone breathed following Daemyung, the way Miso and Suyeon taught them was no different, aside from the fact that Miso made you breathe until your head was spinning. After the exercise ended, everyone stretched their muscles. Daemyung was still chubby, but he was very flexible. Most of the former members were, as a matter of fact. The result of a year’s worth of harsh training with Miso, even now, they occasionally thought about having to stretch their legs against the wall.

“Alright, after the ankles, then...”

Right then, Suyeon entered the classroom. Today, she had tied her hair into a ponytail. She greeted everyone with her sunglasses lying on her forehead.

“Wow, you were practicing?”

“Mm? Ah, yes.”

Daemyung tried to go back to his original spot before Suyeon stopped him.

“Do it to the end.”

“Me?”

“Who else?”

Daemyung went back to work nervously, the members looked away from Suyeon as well and resumed their focus on Daemyung.

“We’re going to pick up coins from the floor as slowly as possible. We’ll pick up ten hundred won coins.”

Daemyung slowly bowed down as if he was in slow motion as he picked up the coins.

“Don’t just move your hips and arms though, you need to slowly move your center of mass forward like you’re actually picking up a coin. It’s going to be very difficult at first.”

Daemyung slightly altered the exercise Miso had taught them. Moving slowly was easy, but following specific instructions doing it wasn’t. Even walking was the combined effort of many muscles, it required perfect balance and focus to be able to do it slowly. Doing it allowed one to understand their body more thoroughly. The understanding of one’s muscles easily led to natural movements, which in turn brought about natural acting.

Just last year, the acting club members didn’t even know how to act. Maru was the same. They got used to it quickly, but it did take a lot of practice.

“Good job,” Suyeon said with a clap.

Daemyung lost his form a little bit. Hah, he was totally embarrassed. Maru smiled as he looked at Suyeon, the woman was complimenting all of them. Miso was a perfectionist, the contrast was like night and day. She came at you like a storm and barked “again” if she didn’t like it, insults were common and compliments were few and far between. Not that she was bad or anything. The club’s skills improved at an incredibly fast pace thanks to it, receiving compliments felt like receiving an amazing gift as well. Miso’s training was harsh, but she didn’t insult a person directly. She was just rough.

“Alright, let me try as well.”

On the other hand, Suyeon was soft. If Miso was a pine tree, then Suyeon was a reed. Unlike Miso, who was direct in everything, Suyeon gently led a person on until she got what she wanted. It made sense that the two didn’t get along.

“Wow.”

Jiyoon let out an exclamation of surprise, the entire club turned their heads. Suyeon was picking up the invisible coin just like Daemyung, slow enough to make her seem like she was standing still. While Daemyung looked like he had lost his balance a tiny bit, Suyeon really did look like she was picking up a coin, very, very slowly.

Bangjoo and Aram tried the same movement, compelled by their competitive urges, but quickly gave up after losing their balance several times.

‘Not many people can have a body like that.’

She had a smooth curve from head to toe. She wasn’t just skinny, she had muscles underneath all over the place. She was the perfect balance between utility and beauty. Maru thought back to what she said, about how it was difficult to survive in the industry with politics alone. She too must’ve prepared a lot to get to where she was now.

“Daemyung should handle the stretch routines from now on. I’ll help you out, so try it.”

Suyeon tapped Daemyung’s shoulder in a form of encouragement, Daemyung’s face immediately turned red. Oh dear, hope he doesn’t fall for her.

“You’re a student, you know.”

“W-what are you talking about?”

“Just date someone your age. It’s for the best.”

Maru whispered towards Daemyung before looking forward, he had no intentions of revealing to the club what kind of a person Suyeon was. He wasn’t looking to ruin relationships. Suyeon was winking at him, he noticed. What a woman. Did she forget that she told him everything already?

“Alright, we’ve stretched well, so we might as well begin, eh?”

Suyeon pulled out a stack of paper from her bag, it was probably the script.

“Alright, let’s take a look at what we want to do. We’ll talk about how to practice afterwards. We don’t have a lot of members, so I chose something with fewer roles. See which ones you guys like.”

“What would you like us to do, instructor?” Aram asked.

“No comment. You guys are going to be the ones that are going to be performing this on stage. It only makes sense that you’ll be the ones that choose.”

“Can we really choose anything?” Dowook asked, he sounded just a tiny bit rude as per usual.

“Do what you want. I’m only here to support you.”

Suyeon handed them the scripts, there were more than six of them. She must’ve prepared a lot. Maru opened the script, it was lined with a ballpoint pen. Probably from Suyeon. So she didn’t just pick it based on the title or anything, Maru appreciated that.

“Um, Maru.”

Halfway through, Maru noticed that the pile of scripts was still in front of him. The entire club was looking at him.

“What are you doing, not reading?”

“We were wondering if you could read it first before giving us your opinion.”

Everyone nodded in agreement towards Daemyung’s words, Maru sighed.

“Shut it with the nonsense and get to reading. Give me your thoughts after reading all of the scripts here. Don’t think about the number of roles or the props or anything. Just judge it based on how fun it seems.”

Maru handed the club the scripts again. Daemyung nodded, but the others seemed to have a bit of a difficult time reading the script.

“You have it hard as well,” Suyeon said.

Maru shrugged.