Life, Once Again!

After Story 98

He vaguely realized a while ago that the name ‘Han Maru’ started floating around in the department from some moment onwards. Why would someone who dropped out suddenly be the topic of everyone?

He found out that Han Maru, that guy, had become an actor, and not just that, an actor who had won the grand prize at a film festival. He would have ridiculed him if it was some run-of-the-mill film festival, but when he investigated, it turned out to be the biggest short film festival in the country. Many famous actors participated as hosts and many famous directors participated as judges.

Not only that, Han Maru started appearing in a new drama as a minor actor. Naturally, people who knew Maru started mentioning him in the department, and the event that led up to his dropping out became quite a hot topic. The story that was buried without a proper closure ended up surfacing again.

Sanghoon chewed his lips and looked at his phone. His juniors did not read his message. He was being blatantly ignored. He also posted something in the group chat composed of his colleagues. Not a single one of them replied either. The same went for his club. In just a few months, his position had degraded into ridicule. Not to mention the department, even the club he was in used to be centered around him, but now, no one replied to him anymore.

It was around that time that he got a message. It was from a friend of his in the same club as him.

-They made another group chat without you. Why did you have to borrow money and not pay it back and ruin your image like that?

Didn’t pay him back? Sanghoon felt unjustified. He did pay him back. There was just a slight misunderstanding in the process of scolding a rude junior. Sanghoon swore as he looked at the blackened TV screen. His personal relationships, which he always considered to be good, had been ruined in an instant. He felt like he was stranded on a deserted island.

How much effort did he put into managing his college relationships? He always attended get-togethers no matter how tired he was and participated in every event he knew. At college, he was known as a cheerful and helpful guy.

But then, after just one event, he started being disrespected by his juniors and mocked by his colleagues. He was worried about what would happen after classes started. How was he supposed to look at anyone now? People would start talking behind his back, that he was a scoundrel who borrowed money and feigned ignorance.

His head ached. Sanghoon reached out to the remote control. He turned on the TV and watched in a daze. He wanted to forget about this shitty situation even for a moment.

A drama that just started yesterday was being broadcasted.

“A new drama…” Sanghoon muttered as he looked at the screen. A familiar face appeared on the screen. He had lost some weight and become much neater-looking, so he almost didn’t recognize him, but it was indeed Han Maru.

He swore and was about to change the channel before deciding to just watch.

This was the 21st century, was it not? It was a great era where the feedback of a drama could be done practically in real-time.

Sanghoon turned on his laptop. Using his phone to type was too slow. Han Maru wouldn’t probably get an article written about him. After all, he was just an extra. Instead, there should be articles about the drama. He just had to look at them and comment there.

The Maru inside the drama was a crime investigator. His acting was ordinary too. That much was something even he could do.

An actor on that level managed to win the grand prize? Sanghoon was sure that the grand prize for the film festival was picked through a lottery.

Soon, articles about the drama started coming up. It was not surprising since a great actor, namely Park Sinseo, was playing the main character. Many online media outlets, ranging from third-rate nameless outlets to ones that everyone knew, were releasing their news articles. One of the articles caught his eye:

“From Lead Characters to Support Characters. A Drama Near Perfection.” This was the article he wanted.

When he clicked on it, he saw that there were over 100 comments. He also had a look at the comments. The fans of the idol seemed to be on a mission as the comment section was spammed with praises about Yoo Jichan.

Sanghoon clicked his tongue and started typing.

-Yoo Jichan’s acting is really good, but that minor actor is really breaking the mood. I found out that his name is Han Maru, and I think he’s dragging down Yoo Jichan with his acting skills. Jichan is really good when he’s with Park Sinseo, but he looks awkward when he’s with that minor actor. Am I the only one that thinks so?

He also commented similar things under other articles as well. He compared Maru to Sinseo under articles with Sinseo’s fans and with Haena under articles with her fans. It was a tedious thing to do, but when he did it, it was fun.

It wasn’t like it cost him any money to do it either. He just had to move his fingers a little.

These days, it was pretty much common knowledge that dramas proactively listened to viewer opinions and reflect on them. It might be difficult to swap out a lead actor, but they should be able to cut off a minor actor for the sake of the program.

Just imagining it made him joyous. Han Maru was going to disappear thanks to the bad comments about him that Sanghoon himself made.

The comment he wrote shot to the top of the comment section. The number of likes on his comment was over 300.

He looked at the comment replies. It managed to spark a fire.

Who is that minor actor? He’s terrible and is bringing oppa down. Another actor would’ve been much better.

The reactions were better than he expected.

“That’s what you get with kids who are head over heels for idols.”

Sanghoon complimented their ‘oppa’ a little and now everyone was with him in criticizing Maru. Now, things were going just the way he expected.

He had a look at the other articles as well and the reactions there were similar. All he said was a minor actor was ruining the drama, yet everyone agreed with him.

It was so easy to ruin the image of a person. Now, other people stepped in and started pointing out problems with the minor actor. He could now see the fire spreading.

The comment section of large media outlets flowed in a similar manner. The drama production crew must have seen the comments as well. He felt refreshed now. His objective was for Maru to disappear from the drama, but this much was already enough. The comments spammed curses at the minor actor.

Maru would probably also look up the articles as well. How would he feel seeing articles filled with insults about him in the comments? Sanghoon couldn’t help but grin when he thought about how depressed Maru must be. Well, that was what he got for messing with the wrong person.

He also joined an internet café that talked about newly released dramas. It was a huge café with over 400 thousand members.

As soon as he joined, he wrote a post related to the drama. He wrote good things about the drama and pointed out the lack of skill of a minor actor right at the end. He added screen captures of various comment sections criticizing Maru as well.

The moment he refreshed the page after posting it, he found over a dozen comments. Everyone said that the lead and supporting actors were great, but the minor actor was ruining it.

He felt funny. Maru wasn’t that bad at acting. He was just ordinary. The people who were agreeing with him probably didn’t watch the drama or must be looking at what they wanted to look at.

In any case, they were thankful people that said what he wanted them to say.

He left behind comments on other parts of the internet as well. When he did, he started to understand the psychology of people who left behind bad comments all day every day. This was actually rather fun. He also felt rather proud whenever he saw the number of people sympathizing with him increase. He felt like he was a part of the mainstream, which made him feel smug.

Sanghoon took his hands off the keyboard. He no longer needed to write anything. People everywhere were scolding the lack of skill of the minor actor. The reason for it was not important. They just liked blaming people and writing their comments for their enjoyment.

He watched the drama with ease now. He even brought some beer. The content was quite interesting. It took some time to make out what it was about because he hadn’t watched the first episode, but when he figured it out, he found himself quite absorbed in it.

Park Sinseo and Lee Haena — these two were great actors. As expected of actors who usually appeared in films, the scenes that contained the two of them gave off a completely different atmosphere from the rest. Yoo Jichan’s acting was decent as well. The middle-aged veteran actors didn’t even need to be mentioned.

He ate some potato chips and focused on the screen. When was the last time he watched a drama in front of the TV again?

The story progressed so fast that he couldn’t take his eyes off.

Another suspect appeared aside from the apprehended culprit. It was the serial killer.

The series of seemingly independent cases turned out to be just one case, and the investigators who caught a clue of the real culprit started their investigations.

The pursuit scene was quite high-effort as well. The quick change of scenes increased the tension.

It was just around the time they predicted the true culprit’s location and narrowed their search radius that the screen switched. The drama then progressed from the culprit’s point of view. The true culprit, who was trying to escape the siege of the investigators, caught sight of the newbie investigator.

He didn’t like the fact that Han Maru had to appear during an important moment like this. An extra was appearing during a moment when the main character had to display a show of power? He started doubting the writer’s skills.

The true culprit and Maru saw each other from a distance. The true culprit started running away. He escaped the dark alleys and ran across a road surrounded by fields.

Maru followed behind. The pursuit scene didn’t contain a single line. Only the sound of rough breathing could be heard through the speakers.

Sanghoon, who was leaning back against the sofa, sat up. He also put down the snacks he was eating. He ended up focusing without realizing it.

The true culprit ran into a warehouse. It was such a dark place that only his silhouette could barely be made out.

Following that, Maru came in. He had a smile befitting a proud newbie investigator. Sanghoon could feel the glee that came from the thought that he had caught the culprit. He couldn’t think about anything else. He was just busy accepting the world unfolding in front of him, the reality that the drama created.

The culprit and Maru faced off.

Sanghoon then realized that this was going to be a murder scene. There was nothing more boring than a predictable story. He was supposed to ridicule it and lose interest here, but for some reason, he couldn’t take his eyes off it.

The true culprit, sunken in darkness, stepped forward. The camera was shooting from the side, so his face couldn’t be seen properly. Despite that, though, the viciousness in his eyes could be seen clearly.

A knife appeared. It was blurred because of censorship.

That was ok though because if it was shot from up close, the blurred knife would’ve ruined the image.

The culprit charged. Only the sound of rustling could be heard without any music.

Sanghoon felt like he was witnessing a madman waving a knife in real life, right from the entrance of the warehouse.

The camera continued to capture the two people from the side.

At this point, it wouldn’t be strange for the camera to zoom in on the culprit’s face or the investigator’s face, but it was fixed in one spot.

Maybe because of that, though, Sanghoon kept his mouth shut and looked at the screen, his breath abated. All of his nerves were focused on that little box that was the TV. Critiques and criticisms were at the back of his mind now. Watching was all he could do.

The true culprit pushed Maru. The two of them were pushed to the periphery of the camera frame.

Even though the center of the frame was empty, the composition didn’t look off. In fact, it looked realistic.

The true culprit, who was at the edge of the frame, swung his knife while being tangled with Maru. No, it was pretty much just a one-sided stab.

Sanghoon rubbed his neck as he watched the scene.

What could he say? It looked so cruel that he wondered if this was even fine. It was violent. It was also why he found it hard to take his eyes off.

Just like how people watched in a daze when there was a steamy sexual scene in a movie, he couldn’t bring himself to escape from the intense moment of murder.

The tension rose along with the cruelty. If the murder scene was displayed blatantly, it would feel cheap, but in this scene, it was covered up and felt polished, and yet it still conveyed the intention properly.

There was no background music either. The only thing that could be heard through the speakers was the killer’s excited breathing sound, the sound of the wind, as well as Maru's dying breath.

Huuu, huu.

When the true culprit calmed his breathing and all sound stopped, the drama OST started flowing out. It was the ending track.

Sanghoon watched the next week’s episode teaser in a daze before opening the laptop. He went back to the internet café again. There was an enormous influx of new posts. The comments that ridiculed the minor actor had long since disappeared. People were busy praising the actors that played the killer and the investigator.

He felt like he was smashed on the back of his head. He immediately looked up the drama on a web portal.

Before, most of the articles were centered around Park Sinseo, Lee Haena, and Yoo Jichan, but now, there were more mentioning the feats of the supporting characters.

5 minutes later, a new article came up.

A world where the lead characters aren’t everything. A rebellion of the minor actors. Pay attention to these people.

Sanghoon looked at the laptop screen for a while before moving his fingers. The first thing he did was delete all the comments and posts he made.

Then, he called Maru.

“Maru, it’s me, Sanghoon-hyung. How are you doing these days?”