“I saw you on TV! I knew I saw you somewhere before.”

“Your scene in The Witness was awesome.”

“The beggar from Apgu is also you, right?”

Maru nodded instead of replying. The amount of attention on him was rather overwhelming.

After they restrained the strong-willed girls, they apologized to each other and were about to go back to their tables when the other party asked them if they were in the acting club. When Daemyung replied yes, the people at Hwasoo High visibly brightened up and asked if they could have a talk. They ended up moving to the same table as Hwasoo High, and after a brief introduction, they talked about various things.

The boy named Inho would ask what they did to prepare and practice for their plays, and Daemyung would respond in kind. Since they had the common background known as acting, they became close in a flash. It was then that Bangjoo blurted out that his seonbae was on TV.

“Have you seen a lot of celebrities?”

“I didn’t play that many characters so I haven’t seen many celebrities.”

“Do you have any that you’re close to?”

“No.”

Since he wanted to escape being the center of attention, he made his answers as short as possible. After asking a few questions, the people at Hwasoo High seemed to have lost interest and talked about other people.

“Sorry about before. Yeonji’s the type to easily get agitated.”

The one at the corner of the table spoke. His name was Lee Haewon. Apparently, he was the younger brother of Heewon, who wasn’t participating in the conversation as he was eating aggressively.

“That goes for us as well. Aram doesn't exactly have a good personality either.”

“I thought they were fighting so I ran over quickly.”

“Me too. I heard that the girl named Yeonji is good at Taekwondo?”

“Yes. She participates in demonstrations and things like that all the time.”

“There might have been big trouble if a fight broke out. One side is good at Taekwondo while the other side is good at Judo. Imagine getting hit by them while trying to stop them.”

“You tell me.”

Haewon asked if he wanted Sprite. Maru extended his cup out.

“I saw you in Daehak-ro, hyung.”

“Me?”

“The street performance.”

“Oh, the street performance.”

“You aren’t doing them these days. It must be because it attracted too much attention, right?”

“Things started going in the wrong direction.”

“Looks like a lot of people tried to use it to their advantage?”

“Probably.”

“It’s such a pity. It was good too. I watched performances like that in small theaters, but that was the first time I saw one done with so many people in the streets. I hoped it could last a long time, but I guess that wasn’t so easy.”

“We aren’t entirely done yet. We might do it as a guerilla play later. Though, I can’t say for sure since I’m not the one making the decisions.”

He tossed a spoon to Dowook who asked for a bottle opener. After looking at him with a sour expression, Dowook pushed in the spoon between the bottle and the cap before pulling it upwards. Along with a pop sound, the cap flew into the sky. The people around clapped for him and started putting their empty cups in front of him.

“Are these all the members of your club?”

“Yeah. This is it.”

“Oh, a small number of elites I guess.”

“We became small due to an unfortunate event. Well, not that I’m saying we aren’t elites. You guys have over twenty, right?”

“Yes. But I don’t belong to the acting club though.”

“Really?”

“I only helped out a little since my brother’s in the club, but they thankfully called me to their get-together.”

“It’s not a little. You almost single-handedly paint the stage background. Also, your job was much prettier than the others too,” Heewon commented before focusing on eating again.

“Looks like your brother was enemies with meat in his previous life.”

“He is quite a glutton. Though, he doesn’t eat that much.”

As soon as Haewon said those words, Heewon put down his chopsticks and started looking at the ceiling in a daze. Haewon smiled faintly.

“He’s like that now, but he’ll probably pick his chopsticks up again saying it’s such a waste by the time we’re about to leave.”

Haewon poured some Sprite for Heewon. He was like a mom that was looking out for her son. After standing up from his seat, Haewon walked around the table picking up any pieces of food that fell on the floor, and put them on an empty plate before bringing the plate to the kitchen. He only came back after putting food on an empty plate, and meat on the empty grill. The people of Hwasoo High seemed to be used to his actions as they didn’t act weirdly at all.

“You look after them a lot.”

“It’s a habit of mine. Personally, I think it’s a bothersome character. I should just let them be, but I can’t do it.”

“You’re the type of guy who would be treated well by good people but make a loss otherwise.”

“The latter makes up the majority though,” Haewon twitched his nose as he spoke.

“Right. You keep coming here because you have to look after Heewon. Why don’t you just switch to the acting club?”

Hearing Hwasoo High’s students say those words, Haewon waved his hand and said that he would think about it. That seemed like an even firmer refusal than saying he didn’t want to.

“Everyone seems to want you there. Why aren’t you doing it? From what I hear, you seemed to like plays too.”

“Hobbies are only fun while they’re still hobbies. Once I start putting time and effort into it, I would feel more pity than joy, so I’m putting some distance. I’m satisfied with visual satisfaction.”

Maru nodded before drinking a sip from his cup.

“Also, I have something else I want to do.”

“Really?”

Haewon, who made a happy expression, suddenly changed and coughed awkwardly.

“I talked about something useless, right? I usually don’t talk about such things.”

“You can keep going. It’s not like I have anyone to talk to either.”

Maru pointed at everyone else. Somehow, they had gotten to the point where they were talking about how Daemyung and Jiyoon were going out, and thanks to that, the table had burned up with stories about love. They were disputing over whether to accept or ban relationships within the club, and the discussion was quite heated.

“You don’t have any walls between seniors and juniors.”

“That was how it was like when Inho-seonbae first created the acting club. He said that he didn’t want any special treatment just because he was born a year early. That’s why everyone’s close. We treat each other like siblings. Isn’t it like that for Woosung High as well?”

“Well, I guess….”

Maru pointed at Aram, who was chatting loudly. She was slapping Daemyung's arms while giggling.

“I guess it’s similar.”

“It is. Rather than that, continue what you were talking about earlier. We should talk to each other as outsiders. Who else can we talk to?”

Haewon nodded.

“I want to support my big brother. That’s my dream.”

“Support him?”

“Yes.”

“How exactly?”

“It’s a rather small dream, but I want to help him become an actor. My brother, while I don’t know about anything else, is really good at acting. Although he often forgets his stuff and is often late to appointments because he’s a sleepy-head, his acting is really the best.”

Supporting his brother, huh. It was a rather peculiar dream. Usually, such words were said by the parents: I want to support my son’s studies; I want to help my daughter’s dream come true. It was definitely not normal for a younger brother to want to look after his elder sibling.

“That’s your dream?”

“Yes.”

“Usually, aren’t dreams more related to you? Like for example, wanting to enter a big company, or wanting to become a civil servant or something.”

“Those are some realistic dreams.”

“Aren’t all dreams like that?”

“I guess they are. But that goes for me as well. Helping my brother out is the way I could raise my own worth. Hmm, actually, my dream was to become a civil servant until last year. Stable employment and a decent wage. Considering various benefits and pensions, I thought there was nothing better than it. But I changed my mind after seeing his acting. My brother doesn’t seem to have any thoughts on continuing down that path right now, but I am sure of it. He needs to do acting.”

“Haewon, you should eat. Why are you eating so little?”

“You can eat a lot. I had plenty already.”

“Hey, when else would we come to a place like this? We need to get our money’s worth.”

“Alright.”

A rather immature-looking elder brother and a rather strong-minded younger brother. They were an interesting duo.

Maru tried asking,

“What are you going to do if he doesn’t want to do it?”

“I’ll try persuading him.”

“Is he that good at acting?”

“Yes. I don’t like saying I’m sure of something, but I can say that in regards to his acting skills. Also, it’s not like he’s entirely unwilling. It’s just that he doesn’t have the confidence yet. Everyone around him is telling him he should try at least. With the right opportunity, he’ll prove his own worth.”

“Heewon has it good. He has a younger brother who has so much faith in him.”

Hearing that, Haewon shook his head.

“I’m the one who should be thankful. I get to help out a genius from the side.”

“Oh, a genius, you say.”

“Yes. My brother is a genius.”

At that moment, Heewon stood up from his seat with a sad face. It seemed that he spilled his drink as his pants were wet.

“Ah, a genius,” said Maru as he faintly smiled.

“...I think he’s a genius when it comes to acting,” Haewon said while shrugging.

Meanwhile, Heewon and Inho disappeared for a moment to the back of the kitchen before coming back. Heewon had changed pants.

Maru drank a sip of water before looking at Heewon. Heewon was the one that broke the win streak that Myunghwa High had for the best actor award. This meant that while they lost as a group, he won individually. Maru wondered how he did his acting. His curiosity was piqued since Haewon so confidently said that he was a genius.

“Well, then. We’ll do that, okay?” Inho said to Daemyung who sat opposite him.

His voice was pretty loud, gathering attention.

“Alright. Let’s see when we get the time.”

“Good. We are the ones learning here, so tell us when you’re okay with it. It’ll be a good experience to interact between acting clubs.”

“Alright, but I don’t think we can do it at my school.”

“Why?”

“Our practice room is small. We are borrowing a classroom to do it.”

“What about your clubroom?”

“We had one, but not anymore.”

“Really? Doesn’t your school give you a clubroom? Woosung Engineering High’s acting club is pretty famous, isn’t it? I heard that they wiped the floor with all the acting competitions when it was first created.”

“There were some events. But we do have a container outside the school building, so we can store our costumes and props there. Other than the fact that we don’t have a big space to practice in, we don’t have any difficulties. Though… that is the biggest problem. Where do you do your practice?”

“Us? The main hall. It’s usually used for indoor gym class, but we are able to use it freely in the afternoon ever since we got the 2nd place prize. There’s a huge banner for us as well.”

I’m envious - Daemyung commented with a bitter smile.

“Then you should come over to our school. It takes an hour by train, so it’s not that far.”

“That’s true.”

“Please come around. I want to watch how a good school practices.”

“You guys did better than us, though. There shouldn’t be a lot to learn from us.”

Things led to one another, and they started talking about practicing together, and they seemed to have come to an agreement. Maru thought that it wasn’t a bad idea since they could motivate each other. Moreover, since he would get to watch Heewon’s acting, he really wanted to go there.

“Since we’re at it, why don’t we do it today? It’s four right now, and we’ll be there by five. If we do it until 9, then there are around four hours, so we should be able to do two runs each. The play should be less than an hour after all,” Inho said. Daemyung looked at the faces of the club members before looking at Maru. Everyone looked at Maru as well.

“How is it, everyone? Are you okay on time?”

As soon as Maru asked, everyone nodded. They all seemed to want to go. Although they didn’t compete directly, the outcome was that Hwasoo High won the competition, while Woosung High lost. The club members must be looking at Hwasoo High as though they were the challengers.

“Daemyung, why don’t we try visiting?”

“Should we?”

As soon as he said those words, Inho stood up from his seat.

“Let’s go right now. We ate plenty, didn’t we?”

The people of Hwasoo High all stood up. Just one person, Heewon, was looking at the grill with a confused expression.

Inho smiled and dragged him away. Their juniors grabbed Heewon by the arm.

“Let’s go as well.”

Maru stood up after wiping his mouth with a tissue.