“Mr. Maru. Are you ready?”

Maru nodded when the direction team asked. The blood capsule that he put in his mouth had almost been completely dissolved. The powder and his spit should have mixed enough by now to look like blood.

“Standby!”

Director Joongjin shouted heartily. The whispers all died down. Following that, sound. He could hear the word ‘speed’ from afar.

“Camera!”

Roll - the camera director’s first assistant shouted as Maru gathered even more saliva in his mouth. This was the second take. After the first take, he was given instruction from the director. During the first run, he ‘leaked’ the blood, so he asked for Maru to spit it out during the second run.

‘Maybe I should’ve just done what he said.’

Ever since the incident yesterday, director Joongjin always asked for his opinions. Just thinking about what the other actors would think of the director going to four minor actors for opinions made his stomach ache. Maru looked at Lee Hyuk, who was standing behind the monitor. He wasn’t hiding his intentions from his eyes that looked at him annoyingly. It seemed that Sooyoung’s words were true. This man didn’t look like he had a good personality.

The slate man’s voice could be heard before the clapper sound entered his ears. The only thing left now was the director’s shout.

“Ready, action!”

Maru let his head fall on the place he decided on and spat out everything in his mouth. The red saliva covered the dark skies. Wasn’t this a B-grade movie? He decided to believe in the power of editing as he rolled around. Since it was a slope, his body started rolling by itself once he pushed himself forward.

Dry leaves scratched his head and little stones, which appeared no matter how hard the staff tried to brush them, away scratched his arms. He was supposed to be dead, so he couldn’t exactly flinch either. He rolled around five meters before landing on a mattress. The staff that was waiting for him immediately came to him and checked up on him.

“Uhm, was my rolling okay?”

“Don’t even mention it. You were practically a bowling ball. Rather than that, you okay?”

“Yes. It just prickles a little. My clothes aren’t ripped, right?”

“They aren’t. Oh wait, there’s a scratch on your cheek. Tsk, that looks painful.”

A female staff member from the direction team gave him a tissue. Maru thanked her before pressing down on his cheeks with the tissue. He was bleeding fake blood from his mouth, and real blood from his cheeks. It was a bloody party.

He dusted off the dry leaves and returned to where he was supposed to be.

“Seonbae-nim. Are you okay?”

“I’m okay.”

He smiled at Bangjoo who asked worriedly before looking at the director. He wondered how it would be this time. If he did not give the okay, he would have to roll down the same path once more.

“Maru, you should curl up your shoulders when you roll. You’ll get injured if you roll like that.”

The action director, Choongho, gave him some advice. For safety, it was best to curl up the arms and put them against the chest, but it would be really awkward if someone that lost consciousness rolled down the hill like that, so the arms were just freely flung around.

“I’ll be careful if I have to roll again.”

“That’s right. What’s important is to not get injured. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

Maru asked Sooyoung and Joon-gi how he did.

“You died dynamically. But is your head okay? It looked really realistic.”

Maru tried touching the back of his head. He smashed his head against a protrusion made of soil, but his hand had some blood from his head as though he had scraped his head against some stones.

“Rinse your mouth with this. You look like a total zombie right now.”

“Thanks.”

He put some water that Joon-gi gave him in his mouth before gargling.

“But seonbae-nim. What does it taste like?” Bangjoo asked, seemingly curious about what artificial blood tasted like.

“It doesn’t taste like anything.”

“They should make it sweet.”

That was not a bad idea. Maru thought that it would be better if it tasted like strawberries. Maru drenched his hand with some water and wiped his face.

“Okay! Thank you for your work everyone. Today’s shoot ends here.”

Everyone cheered while clapping.

“Thanks for your work.”

“Thank you too.”

With that, the four minor actors’ roles were finished here as well. The funeral scene in the morning and the death scene in the afternoon. Thanks to director Joongjin editing the original script several times, he got a lot of appearances. Occasionally, they would get one-shots just by themselves so smiles never ceased to appear on their faces throughout the shoot.

“I hope the movie goes well. I’ll bring my mom to watch it,” Sooyoung said as he organized the drill uniform.

Everyone started getting ready to pull out. The lights turned off, and the generator car also quietened down.

“Let’s return the scene to its original state before going down.”

Director Choi from the art team raised a shovel above her head as she spoke. They started putting the ground that they turned over for the brawl scene back to its original state.

“Well then, let’s do this together. We’ll need everyone to attend the afterparty after all,” director Joongjin raised a shovel as he spoke.

Other than the lights team and the camera team who had to move around heavy equipment, the rest of the staff joined in. Even the people that came here to act in the action scene gladly helped out.

“Afterparty. What a magical word.”

“We should help out as well.”

Since he mentioned a party, it seemed that the parts they needed to shoot here were finished. The beginning sequences for the movie were completely finished in just two days. It was quite a tight schedule, but it didn’t feel like they were being chased by time. It was probably thanks to director Joongjin’s method of shooting.

“This feels like an exercise before a meal.”

Maru also joined with a shovel in hand.

* * *

“I’m gonna sleep.”

“I’m already sleeping.”

That was the exchange between Sooyoung and Joon-gi who sat behind him. Maru pulled the curtains to cover the window. On the coach back to Seoul, everyone had fallen asleep due to fatigue. Even Bangjoo, who seemed excited to go back, was leaning against the backrest of the front seat, dozing off. It seemed that he had finally expended all of his internal batteries.

“You should get some rest.”

Maru also yawned before closing his eyes. He would probably be back in Seoul by the time he woke up. He let his body rest against the chair that was vibrating slightly, waiting for sleep to overwhelm him when his phone in his pocket notified him that there was a message. It was 9 p.m. on a Sunday. There was only one person who would send him a message at this hour.

-You finished?

Maru pressed some buttons on her number, which he saved as ‘Bunbun’, to reply to her.

-I’m on the way back. How about you?

-I’m done as well.

-Must be tired then.

-Yeah, I’m tired.

-I’ll call you then. It’s less tiring to speak than to text after all.

He wasn’t used to pressing buttons on a phone, so Maru decided to call her. He pressed the call button and waited for her to pick up when the signal cut off mid way. He wondered if he mis-pressed so he was about to call again when he got a text message.

-No. I’m tired today. I’m going to go to sleep now.

Maru looked at his phone screen for a long time. People had their own patterns. In her case, it was to make a phone call after exchanging text messages. Good night - she always called him to speak just those two words.

Even on days when he grumbled over text about being exhausted, she gave him a call without fail to say those words. Maru folded his phone before thinking. Perhaps she was really tired. Perhaps she might have crawled into her bed thinking that she couldn’t be bothered to do anything. Like how it required a long time to recharge a completely depleted battery, even she sometimes expended herself of any energy.

Was this that time?

Maru opened his phone. It wasn’t just women that had intuitions. Men had their own intuitions as well. Maru wanted to know what was so iffy about this dry text message.

He was wondering whether to call her or not before leaving a message. He wanted to help her out if she encountered something difficult and perhaps talk bad together if she was pissed about something. He wanted her to rely on him regardless of what it was.

-Did something happen?

He typed that and almost sent the message, but Maru quickly pressed the cancel button. He started a new message and started typing again.

-If you aren’t sleeping, hang out with me a little.

He sent the message before opening the curtain. When he was looking at the cars that were rushing by, the phone in his hands started vibrating.

-Sorry.

That was her reply.

* * *

She put her phone down before biting her lower lip. Originally, she wanted to call him. No, before she even sent a text, she wanted to call him and listen to his voice. No, it wasn’t that either. She didn’t want to listen, but rather she wanted to say everything.

When she curled up her body, the script entered her eyes. ‘That family is strange’. When she first received the script, and when she first read the title out loud, how happy was she then?

It was her debut as an actress that she had dreamed of for a long time. She was a nextdoor friend of the main character. The character was rather vague so she didn’t have many lines, but she would be satisfied just by getting into a single frame with other actors.

“Geez, why am I like this?”

She laughed in vain when she saw a tear droplet fall down. This was no good. She kept rubbing her eyes with the back of her hands. She rubbed to the point that she was worried that they would go red, but for some reason, she couldn’t stop.

The moments she experienced during the day came back to her. A startling rebuke as well as a gaze that looked down on her; the voices that whispered in the background. She curled up her body even more. The woman that slapped down the script on her head, Lee Miyoon. She could still hear her laughing voice.

“Looks like I made a bad impression.”

When Yoojin first mentioned to her about Lee Miyoon, she decided that she would act carefully in front of that person, but things went wrong on the first day. After the first greeting that she thought she was forgiven for, that woman sneakily bullied her. It was as though she wanted her to keep enduring; to keep struggling and not leave the place.

She kept reminding herself inwardly that it was okay, but her fears became larger the farther the shoot progressed. What kind of words would she hear today? What kinds of things would she nitpick about today?

Let’s run away - those words subconsciously came to her mind.

She sat up. She then stood up and stood in front of the mirror.

“Who told you to make such a pathetic face?”

She pulled her cheeks to the sides.

She was scared of Lee Miyoon. It was to the point that she couldn’t look at her straight in the eye. However, the scarier she felt, the more rebellious she felt as well. I will never give up, I will make her say that I’m good from her mouth - she thought.

“But… can I really do it?”

She protruded her lips out.

“Aaargh, I don’t know! I don’t get it!”

She flung herself on the bed and started violently waving her hands around. She wanted to grab someone and swear at that woman. She wanted to talk about what a bad woman she was and how difficult she had it.

However, she didn’t want that person to be Maru. That person never said anything when he was hurt, but always brought medicine when someone else was hurt. If she told him her worries, he would probably listen to her stories in a warm, kind manner, but looking at it another way, that was just her pushing her worries onto Maru.

Maru had been busy enough already these days. He had to be tired. Despite that though, he never complained. He always smiled and always played jokes on her. She didn’t want to rant in front of such a person.

She didn’t want to become a burden to him.

“My girl, is something happening?” Her mom came in and asked.

She hurriedly turned her head away and stuffed herself into the blanket. She couldn’t let her mom find out that she was crying.

“I-I was just practicing acting.”

“Geez, aren’t you putting in too much effort? Mom was surprised, you know?”

“Uh, okay. I’ll be quiet.”

“My girl.”

“Yeah?”

“Want to drink some coffee with mom? I have some spare time since I just finished my manuscript.”

I’m fine - she was just about to reply but her mom was already in front of her. She could see the laptop with the screen still on through the gaps of the door.

“You should study acting more if you want to fool your mom. Come out. Your mom’s itching to talk as well.”

Her mom patted her on the butt before leaving with a smile. She sniffed once before going to the living room.