Life, Once Again!

After Story 108

“Are you doing an existing play?” Maru asked Jungah, who sat next to him.

“We wanted to create our own, but it was out of our capabilities. That was why we made slight changes to the play ‘A Night in June.’”

“A Night in June. That’s an interesting play.”

He combed through his memories. A Night in June was a play about an event that happens in a mountain village. Although there were slight changes in each era, the event that created conflict was always the same.

“Who plays the village chief?”

“Taemin plays it. He’s the one wearing glasses on the far right. He’s great at making himself look bad, so he’s playing the chief,” said Jungah.

The one who borrowed money from the chief, the one whose weakness the chief held, the one who shared a secret with the chief, and the one bullied by the chief — there were various people, but the story would progress after hearing the news of the chief’s death.

“We’re ready!” Sinhye said, poking her head out from behind the curtain.

Maru twisted his leg and buried himself into the chair. Since he had decided to help out, he was going to watch properly with the eyes of a critic.

The fact that they asked for advice meant that they were ready to be criticized. He forgot the fact that they were still college students. That identity couldn’t pardon them if they made a mistake. The only thing they should do as aspiring actors on stage was to display good acting for the audience.

“May we start?” Jungah asked.

Maru shouted at the stage, “Can everyone come to the center of the stage for a moment?”

Everyone came to the stage.

“Before we start, I’d like to gather your opinions. I’m no one amazing and don’t possess any great pair of eyes, but since I was asked to give you feedback, I will have no choice but to give you bitter words. Of course, I will applaud you if you do well. If you do not like my attitude, please tell me.”

“Please criticize us big time. Jungah wouldn’t have called you here just to make us feel good,” Sinhye said with a smile. The others also said similar things.

He had a look at the faces of the students. He could roughly tell what they were thinking. They were probably thinking that there was a limit to how harsh he could be since he was at most a year or two older than them and that at most, it would be a couple pieces of advice.

Maru smiled and pointed at the students with both of his hands, indicating for them to start.

“Please wait, I’ll go turn off the lights.”

Jungah left her seat and a moment later, the lights were off. Jungah returned and spoke as she sat down,

“There are blackout parts throughout the play, but I don’t think we can do that because we don’t have anyone in the control room.”

“That’s okay. I’ll take that into account. Then there won’t be any sound effects either, huh?”

“Yes. I know this is supposed to be a proper rehearsal, but it’s still improper.”

“You lack people, so I guess it can’t be helped.”

The play then began. A man came up to the empty stage. He did not hide his disgruntled expression and shouted after walking to and fro for a while.

“Miss Lee! When are you going to pay me back the money?”

He seemed to be the village chief. After the chief’s shout, a woman hurriedly came out from behind the curtain.

“I’m sorry, village chief. My parents told me they would send the money, but something must’ve happened as I haven’t gotten it yet.”

“You don’t look the part, but you’re a scary woman, Miss Lee. I lent you big money because I pitied you for having a hard time in a place like this despite being a young woman, yet now, you what? Something must have happened?”

“I’m really sorry.”

“You’re sorry?”

“Of course I am.”

“Then massage my shoulders a little. I think my stiff shoulders will disappear in no time if a pair of soft hands could massage them.”

The woman shirked away and spoke, “Chief, you said you wouldn’t do this.”

“What did I even do? I just asked you to massage my shoulders. Is that so hard? How can you shirk away from massaging an elder’s shoulders after getting millions of won from me for nothing.”

The woman hesitated before approaching the village chief and massaging his shoulders.

“This feels good. Your hands are so fair and pretty.” The chief stroked the woman’s hands.

The woman shook her hands like she had been touched by a bug, but she still returned to massaging the chief’s shoulders.

“Well, it’s no wonder you can’t tell your parents. You blew all your tuition on gambling.”

“H-how did you….”

“I’ve seen my fair share of people so how would I not know? It’s hard to earn money, isn’t it? I won’t tell you to pay back the interest and money, so just give me a shoulder massage like this from time to time. Tell me if you need more money, but only if you could massage other places than my shoulders.”

The village chief left the stage after saying that he was feeling refreshed.

The woman who was left alone on stage followed the chief with her eyes, her gaze filled with rage and fear.

“I hope he dies.”

After that, similar scenes unfolded. They were all servile in front of the village chief but deep in their hearts, they wished for the chief to die.

This was a rather decent opening. As Jungah said, the one playing the village chief did rather well in setting the foundation.

In A Night in June, the village chief was not pure evil. He was just an ordinary person with power. As such, the villagers who didn’t have any association with the village chief did not have any bad feelings toward him. In fact, quite a lot of people knew him because he greeted other people a lot.

The only ones wishing for his death were the ones who borrowed his power or got caught by him doing something bad.

“Hey, have you heard? I heard the chief died.”

“Was that what the police cars were about yesterday?”

“Yeah.”

“If he passed away in his sleep, it would be just an ambulance.”

“Something must’ve happened.”

The whispering villagers left and a man wearing a leather jacket came in.

The man spoke to Joohwan, who was passing by the stage.

“Excuse me. I am from the Wonho Police Station.”

“Eh? Okay.”

Joohwan loosened his fists and wiped them on his pants. He was expressing the tension well through his actions. It looked rather natural.

Jungah had mentioned that Joohwan was the biggest problem. For now though, nothing looked out of place. He was displaying a good character just like the time with ‘Water Fog.’

“I’m not sure if you have heard, but the village chief died last night.”

“The village chief? How….”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out. May I hear what you were doing last night?”

“Me? But why would you….”

“It’s a murder case.”

“I didn’t kill him!”

“Yes, I know. We’re only investigating just in case. It’s a small village after all.”

The investigator then met multiple people throughout the village. They were all people that had resentment toward the village chief. They all became nervous when they heard that the chief had died.

“There doesn’t seem to be a problem with Joohwan’s acting,” Maru whispered to Jungah.

“It has been okay until now. The problem is with this bit.”

After the investigator and the villagers left, Sinhye and Joohwan came up on stage.

These were the two problematic children of the troupe. The two took center stage.

“Tell me honestly. You cheated on me, didn’t you?”

“Woman, you’re still going on about this nonsense? You’ve gone crazy for the divorce money, haven’t you?”

“You’re the one who’s crazy. I was an idiot for believing that people won’t cheat when they get married.”

“Look at your attitude towards your husband who came back from work. You’re probably wishing that I set up a livelihood with another woman, as that way you can legally take the money I worked for with my blood and sweat.”

“I know you already set one up.”

“There you go off again, with your delusions. I can’t lift my head around this neighborhood, you know? Some crazy woman is turning an innocent man into a cheater.”

“I’m crazy? I’M CRAZY?”

This showed the deepening of the conflict. The good part about this play was watching the situations of the characters that kept getting worse and worse while the culprit that killed the village chief was still a mystery.

At the same time, it had to give the audience some clues to deduce the killer. It wasn’t a play that needed audience participation, but it had a similar aspect.

The element of deduction was very satisfactory. In the first place, there was an original play this was based on, so the consistency wasn’t a problem.

The actor’s acting wasn’t so bad in increasing the immersion. It couldn’t be called splendid, but it was not terrible. Maru had yet to find any fatal problems that were detrimental to displaying the performance. As for the trivial things, he could say them after the play.

What could be the problem? He watched while pondering.

“Look at me in the eyes when you speak,” Sinhye said while grabbing Joohwan’s arm.

Joohwan shook her arm off and put his face against Sinhye’s. After panting, he looked like he was about to speak, but...

The face filled with intense rage was gone in an instant.

It was also at this moment that Jungah clutched her face with a sigh.

Sinhye frowned and went up to him, but Joohwan turned his head away and waved his hand.

“This isn’t right. Nam Sinhye, this isn’t the right feeling.”

“Hey, geez!”

Sinhye shook her head like a horse neighing before getting away from him. The actors behind the curtain crept out.

Joohwan scratched his chin and looked at Maru.

“Senior, you saw that, right? This isn’t right. It just doesn’t fit. The emotions don’t match.”

Maru looked at the actors on stage with his legs crossed. He waited for one minute. The actors still stood there.

Maru looked at Joohwan and laughed.

“Joohwan.”

“Yes.”

“What did you tell me again? That I gave you stimulus? That I should continue to be one?”

“Yes.”

“Looks like I must’ve misunderstood your words. I thought what you said contained a hint of respect. But I guess I was wrong.”

“No, I really respect you. I want to catch up to you.”

“Do you truly think so?”

“Yes.”

Maru scratched his eyebrows. He had come across many absurd situations after starting his life, but he had never been angry.

He had lived for such a long time and experienced everything he needed to. How could he get angry at everything?

However, right now, he was more annoyed than if he was being insulted outright.

No, forget annoyance. He felt humiliated.

“Park Joohwan. Where do you think you’re standing now?”

“Huh?”

“I’ll tell you since it looks like you don’t know, but you’re on the stage. Also, I told you before you started right? That I will watch with the mindset of an audience that paid for the ticket. Also, everyone other than Joohwan, you all said that I can criticize as much as I want, right?”

Maru scanned everyone on stage. Some of them lowered their heads as though they realized what the problem was.

“Since you stopped, let me say one thing.”

He stood up from his seat. Then he walked towards the stage.

He stopped in front of the stage that came up to his waist and looked up at the actors.

“I don’t usually swear. There’s no benefit for me in doing so. But I do when I think it’s necessary. First of all, every one of you, consider it fortunate that you aren’t acting for money. This is what you call proper? An accident occurred on stage and you just crawl out after dazing out? You aren’t thinking properly, are you? You don’t want to do this, do you?”

The actors all stayed silent when they made eye contact with him.

Maru looked at Joohwan right in front of him and continued, “And you, don’t you ever go around telling people that you know me. If you had the slightest thought that I was your senior, no, I was a member of the audience, you wouldn’t dare do something like this.”

He pointed at the stage with his finger. The voice he tried hard to suppress became louder and louder. He thought Joohwan was a decent junior, but he turned out to be a total idiot.

“It’s not like a light fixture fell down, it’s not like the platform suddenly collapsed, and it’s not like someone suddenly collapsed from a heart attack, yet you dare stop acting and start uttering bullshit! Hey, you bastard, how dare you still call yourself an actor!”

Maru stroked the stage.

“Get down here. The stage is wasted on you.”