“It’s hard to go to the cafeteria when it’s raining. Everyone puts their umbrellas up and it’s complete chaos. I wish there was a roof.”

“I sympathize with this a lot. Lunchtimes during rainy days are practically warzones.”

“If any of the teachers are listening to this broadcast, I hope you can bring it up during the teacher’s meeting.”

Yeondu signalled Bangjoo. Bangjoo nodded and spoke into the microphone.

“Well, that’s the last suggestion from the students. Next up is the audio drama from the acting club Blue Sky. Today’s topic is about love.”

Yeondu raised the volume of the background music while Bangjoo’s commentary was going on. The sound that would be outputted by the school speakers could be heard through her headphones, and the music went really well with Bangjoo’s voice as it sounded really pleasant.

“Seonbae.”

Hearing Maru’s call, Yeondu nodded and switched seats with Jiyoon. Since the only Jiyoon needed to do to broadcast her voice was to control the volume knob for the background music and the microphone button, she shouldn’t make a mistake.

“I won’t make a mistake with pronunciation. I’m actually quite skilled, you know.”

Yeondu made idle remarks as she opened the script. Ever since she started the school radio program, she researched radio programs done by famous radio DJs. The progression, the tone of voice, and even the pronunciation. She did not have any experience in acting, but she was more confident than the kids from the acting club when it came to speaking in a clear, consistent voice.

“But you have to be more proactive when acting, Maru. That’ll make it easier for me.”

“Understood.”

Yeondu read down the script as she perked up her ears. She listened to the music from her headphones and looked for the right time to cut off the music before gesturing towards Jiyoon. Jiyoon’s hands moved and the music died down while the microphone went up. Yeondu gave Jiyoon a thumbs up before focusing on the script.

Today’s story seemed to be based on the recently popular high-teen romance. There were quite a lot of students in her class who also read these types of novels. A girl hesitating between the boy she likes, and the cool boy that confessed to her. Then the struggle of love that ensues.

Thinking that it would be an envious scenario, Yeondu looked at the kids sitting around her. She had gotten quite close to the acting club since they had started working together for the audio drama broadcast. The first thing she thought of when she had the thought that she wanted to create audio dramas was Yoonjung, who was in the same class as her. Even now, she thought that it was a good thing that she asked Yoonjung for help since she used to lead the acting club. Thanks to that, she was able to proceed with her ideas without any problems.

“Isn’t Chaeho quite decent?”

Yeondu said into the microphone. She exchanged a couple of lines with Dowook, who had sharp eyes. Although the contents were pretty cheesy, she didn’t feel anything when she actually read them out loud. When she thought that she wasn’t playing around here, she was able to say the cheesy words without any difficulties.

Yeondu glanced at the clock. Their time limit was 5 minutes before the next period. She had to wrap things up before then.

After gesturing to Daemyung to hurry, since he was a slow-talker, she followed suit. Daemyung was proficient at adjusting the speed, so he took care of himself after telling him what to do once.

Yeondu flipped over the script. It was the last page. As the drama didn’t contain any narration and was instead made purely of lines from characters, the content wasn’t that long. Maru, who had been silent until now, half-turned around and readied himself to speak.

Yeondu also looked at Maru without thinking much.

“Uhm, Min-ah.”

At that moment, Yeondu flinched backwards subconsciously. Maru’s eyes contained deep affection. She didn’t feel anything when she exchanged lines with Dowook or Daemyung, but for some reason, she felt weird when Maru looked at her.

“Yeah? What is it?”

She checked the script before speaking.

“What are you doing after school today?”

She felt as though Maru’s face was closing in on her, but when she had a second look, Maru hadn’t changed his posture at all. Yeondu licked her lips. For some reason, she felt nervous.

“Go home, of course.”

“Then… would you like to watch a movie with me?”

At that moment, Yeondu widened her eyes and looked at her hand. On her hand, which she placed on the table, Maru had placed his hand on top of it. Yeondu tensed her toes. What was this kid doing?

“Seonbae-nim, your line, your line.”

Just then, Jiyoon whispered to her from behind. Yeondu hurriedly put her microphone against her mouth and said the next line. Her voice was shaking against her will. Thinking that she was saying her line infinitely close to the affection-filled voice that the script required, she shouted ‘yes’ inside her mind. However, after realizing that Maru’s hand was still placed on top of hers, she gulped in nervousness.

Now that she looked at it, there was a line on the script. Open parenthesis, ‘while grabbing her hand’, close parenthesis. Yeondu fidgeted and tried to wriggle her hand out, but Maru forcefully grabbed onto her.

Yeondu looked at Maru in a panic. Maru had the expression of a boy full of love, nay, an expression much deeper than that.

In the end, Yeondu wrapped the play up while being so nervous that she didn’t know how it ended. She felt her heart racing.

“Is there a love story like that around us too? I hope there is. Unfortunately, though, it never happened to me.”

Aram did the finishing commentary. Only then did Maru let go of her hand. Yeondu quickly pulled back her hand as though she had touched something hot, before laughing and putting the hand back on the desk slowly.

That was because Maru’s expression as he tidied up the script was extremely calm. No, he looked a little sleepy.

‘He’s even yawning.’

Seeing Maru yawning with his mouth wide open, she felt funny that her heart was racing until just now. At the same time, she wondered if that was what acting was about.

So even lies induce reactions.

She felt good now since she thought that she learned a new thing. As Yeondu aspired to become a producer for a TV program in the future, this kind of experience was very precious to her.

‘One of the methods to seduce the audience is a charming lie. Oh, that’s a good line, I must say.’

Thinking that, Yeondu looked at Maru and Dowook alternately. Actually, based on face alone, Dowook looked a little more handsome than Maru. But curiously, her heart did not flutter when she exchanged lines with Dowook. So it was the difference of acting skill after all? It was understandable since Maru even appeared on TV.

She stood up and placed her hands on the control panel that Jiyoon was in front of. She played relaxing music that would play until the end of the lunch period before turning around and clapping.

“Thanks for today. We didn’t encounter any accidents today either.”

“Thank you for your work.”

Just as she sighed, Aram burst out laughing and spoke,

“Yeondu-seonbae. Why were you panicking so much? I thought you liked him for real.”

Bangjoo, who was next to her, also chimed in.

“She’s right. You were beet red just now.”

Yeondu crossed her arms and snorted.

“That’s right, I was a little nervous. Satisfied?”

As she didn’t have a personality where she would snap out at trivial things, Yeondu reacted nonchalantly. Her heart did race so she didn’t have any excuses either. It wasn’t a sin to feel embarrassed and excited like she was being confessed to for real, was it? In fact, it was instead Maru’s fault for being too serious about acting.

“As expected of you. You admitted it quite easily.”

“Maru was good at acting. I thought I was being confessed to for real. You guys saw that, right? The way he grabbed my hand and looked at me with a deep gaze. His acting is so on point.”

“I did see it. Hehe, it looked good though.”

Aram made a rectangular frame with her fingers and placed it in front of her eyes. Jiyoon slapped Aram on the shoulder and told her to stop.

“Sorry about that, seonbae-nim,” Jiyoon apologized.

Yeondu immediately shook her head.

“You don’t need to apologize. I’m not such a picky person. I can take a joke or two. Don’t you think so, Aram?”

“Of course. Our cutie here is too courteous for her own good.”

Yeondu winked at Jiyoon. Jiyoon smiled back at her. She thought that having a little sister like her would be great. After all, there would be a lot of fun in teasing someone like that.

“Rather than that, Han Maru. You were pretty good back there, huh?” Yeondu said as she slapped the back of Maru’s neck.

She found out just today, but an assertive boy didn’t seem too bad. If someone confessed to her the way Maru did, she might end up accepting on the spot.

“What do you mean?”

“Your acting was pretty good. I knew it was a lie, but even then I was nervous, you know? I was wondering what you were up to all of a sudden. Tell me honestly. You actually have feelings for me, don’t you?”

Yeondu didn’t hold back since everyone was throwing around jokes everywhere. The people from the acting club all burst out laughing. Yeondu also just shrugged and enjoyed the situation.

“Seonbae. Maru-seonbae has a girlfriend already.”

“Really? Then is he a two-timer?”

She grinned and had a look at the clock. It was about time they went back. It was fine for Yeondu to be late to 5th period since she had her work in the broadcasting club, but the rest of the people here would get an earful if they were late to the next class.

Just as she was about to tell them to go to their classrooms, Maru, who was cleaning up the papers on the ground, spoke,

“It was an act, but it wasn’t a lie.”

“Huh?”

Yeondu tilted her head in confusion. It was an act but not a lie? It took her three seconds to understand what he meant, and her head became complicated immediately. Even the others, who were listening from the side, stopped laughing and looked at Maru with surprise.

“An actor I respect once told me that I shouldn’t put on a lie when I act. Although it was an act, and it was just for a short time, I really tried to like you for real, seonbae. Grabbing your hand was just a byproduct of that,” said Maru as he placed the neatly piled script on the center of the table.

“So I felt really good when you admitted that you were nervous because of me. I thought my acting was praised.”

Only then could Yeondu smile back.

“Oh, and here I was thinking about something completely different.”

The others also chimed in.

“That startled me. Maru-seonbae, I almost swore at you because I thought you were two-timing.”

“I was also surprised as well.”

Maru pushed his chair in and said ‘I thought we were all joking here?’. The people from the acting club giggled as they cleaned up.

“Seonbae-nim. We’ll take our leave.”

“Alright, thanks for today. Also, there probably won’t be a drama tomorrow.”

“Then we don’t have to come?” Aram asked as she opened the door.

“You don’t have to, but you can if you want to. It’d be great if you can help me out.”

“Then I’m coming.”

“Instead, you’ll have to eat at the cafeteria. There won’t be any food here tomorrow.”

“Okay!”

Yeondu waved at the kids leaving the room before quietly closing the door. Then, she leaned on the door and spoke in a small voice,

“Maru, huh. He’s pretty decent. I might have confessed if he didn’t have a girlfriend already.”

So that was what it felt like for someone to like her seriously. Yeondu fantasized for a while before shaking her head. She had a mountain of work to do. She had to stop her delusions and take care of the problem in front of her.

“Ah, I think that song will be good tomorrow.”

She always had a problem picking the right song every day, but today, she thought of a suitable one to play tomorrow. It was a song about love that would perfectly portray what she was thinking right now. It was quite childish when she first listened to it, but right now, she thought it was pretty good. It was a pretty old song. Yeondu started humming that song as she cleaned up the cables. Just then, the bell for the next class started ringing. Since it would be okay for her to be ten minutes late to class, she thought that she should rest a little before going.

At that moment, the door to the broadcasting room suddenly opened before a junior came in. He was panting as though he came here in a hurry.

“What the, why are you here?”

“T-to help you out, seonbae.”

“Your homeroom teacher told you not to miss any classes though.”

“It’s fine. I came here after saying that I needed to go to the bathroom. Seonbae, what should I help you with?”

“Help, you say…”

At that moment, Yeondu caught sight of her junior’s eyes as he looked straight at her. Those eyes, they were the same eyes that Maru looked at her with just before. She felt her calm heart start racing again. She calmly stared at her junior who smiled brightly, telling her to give him work, before giggling and speaking,

“Hey.”

“Yes?”

“Do you like me?” Yeondu asked as she raised her glasses a little.

Her junior froze up on the spot. Yeondu sat on the table and waved her feet around like she was playing by the stream before laughing out loud. She could hear the sound of the wind, as well as the deep voice of a teacher from the corridor seeping through the door.

“What are you doing after school today?”

“E-eh? Ah! I go home. No, I actually don’t.”

Yeondu threw a pen from the desk at her junior and spoke,

“Then come watch a movie with me.”