Life, Once Again!

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“You can stop there.”

The boy gave back the script.
Junmin wrote a few lines on the boy’s profile.
The boy expected that he was going to do more, but it was over.
He came back.
The boy, Jintae, didn’t look too good.
His expression contained deep disappointment as though he could show them more than what he did now.

“Next.”

Maru felt like he was in a canned tuna factory.
He was a canned tuna who went through processing, and the people in front of him were quality assurance personnel evaluating his quality.
If he did average, then he wouldn’t be picked on, but nor would he be elected.
He would just become any other ordinary canned tuna.
He had to be different from the rest.
Whether in a good way or in a bad way, he had to catch the eyes of the people in front of him.
It had been ten minutes since the audition began.
Despite that, the people in front of him clearly had bored expressions.
This was a very dangerous sign.
From the fact that the people in front of him had dozens of other people to see, this stale atmosphere had to be changed as soon as possible

However,

“I’m number 18, and my name is K, Kim Joonmyoung.
I’m from G, Gangnam actor.”

This candidate was the worst possible candidate to change the atmosphere.
He seemed like he was a patient with an anxiety attack.
The atmosphere became even worse.
Maru found that the people seated behind the table as well as the people standing behind them had disdain in their eyes.

“Go on once you’re ready.”

Despite that, Hoyoung and Junmin looked at the boy in front of him.
They had the mindset of professionals to not miss any potential candidate.
It would have been good if their passion for work worked positively for the boy, but the boy named Joonmyoung seemed to be heavily pressured by their gazes.

“Uhm… uh… uhm….”

Maru found him pitiful.
This boy should have prepared a lot for this.
However, the audition was where one needed to show results.
After watching for about 10 seconds, Junmin sighed and shook his hand.
The boy standing on the x mark didn’t even see his gesture and stood still.

“Well done.
You can go back,” only after Hoyoung spoke out did the boy come to himself and step backwards.
The boy did not have any expression as he stepped back.
He looked dazed.

“Next.”

Maru heaved a deep breath before standing up.
Although he had prepared a delinquent act as well, it seemed that it was better for him to change it for something else.
It was used too much before him.
If he did the same, he would probably get lower scores.
He had plenty of lessons from the people prior to his turn.
His breathing was normal, and he had just enough tension.
The x mark.
That was the stage.
Thinking of it as a stage, he became a lot more relaxed.
He even felt a little excited.
He even had something like an uncontrollable urge to spill all of his emotions to the people in front of him.
However, Maru suppressed those urges temporarily.
The skit he was about to do was not something that required him to express his emotions violently.
What he was about to do was to show a thin strand of his emotions flowing out from his suppressed emotions.
Perhaps what he was about to do was not acting, but a confession.

“May I use a chair?”

“Sure,” Hoyoung replied as he pointed at the chair next to him.
Maru placed the chair on top of the x mark and sat on top of it.

“I’ll start once I get ready.”

After checking Hoyoung nod, he closed his eyes for a moment.
What he was about to say now was the cold hard truth.
Though, a little technique would be added.

If acting was about imitation, he was going to imitate himself.

He heaved a deep breath.

“I got to know love at an age too young to discuss love.
I met someone I wanted to take responsibility for while I was still insufficient.
That person was a foolish person who looked after other people more than herself.
She was courageous, devoted, and above all… pretty,” Maru smiled as he reminded himself of her smile.
There was no need to proactively think about ‘making a smile’.
Just thinking about her made him smile subconsciously.

“Naturally, I had a lot of competitors.
There aren’t many men who can leave a girl like her alone.
I became close to her due to a coincidence, but I couldn’t be relieved.
That’s why I stuck to her.
So that other men couldn’t approach her.
Perhaps due to that, she accepted my proposal.
Oh, of course, it didn’t happen so easily.
There were a lot of hurdles.
In any case, we got married and moved into our own house.
Although we had to get a loan, it was a cozy home for us.”

He shrugged his shoulders before continuing.

“Those days didn’t contain that many hardships.
Sometimes, we fought because our opinions didn’t match, but those fights didn’t last long.
I know well that I can’t win against her.
Every day passed without a hitch.
Those were ordinary days with laughs and annoyances.
And amidst those ordinary days, the two of us became the three of us.”

He combed through his memory.
He couldn’t remember much, but the faint smell still lingered in his mind.

“The baby had the smell of happiness.
It was very similar to the smell of that person.
The baby grew every day and when I came to, she was walking with her two feet.
Her first words were ‘papa’.
Yes.
it was definitely papa.”

His voice was very tranquil.
The faces of the judges flashed in front of him, but he did not see their expressions.
The audience of this monodrama was himself after all.

“The baby grew, and eventually she reached the age where she rebelled with a straight face.
Geez, she made me so dejected.
That feeling you get when the little daughter telling you ‘you’re awesome’ changes to ‘you should lose some weight’ is just… Phew, but that was still good.
When I opened my eyes in the morning, my beloved was next to me, and when I left my room, there was the child I loved even more.
That seemed like an unbreakable, eternal happiness.
At least, I thought so.”

Maru heaved a long sigh.
Then, he progressed with his thoughts.
His relaxed body started getting goosebumps.
That moment became vivid in front of him.
The large lump of metal stomped on his chest.

“It was an accident.
Yes, that was an accident.
I laughed.
The sweetness of happiness still lingered within me, yet I was dying.
I thought about a lot of things.
At the same time, I resented enough to kill.”

Creak! He gritted his teeth.
His heart whispered to him that it was time to let loose a little of his reason.
He abruptly raised his head.
Then he glared at the camera.

“That happiness wasn’t something that was supposed to end there.
That person and my child weren’t supposed to sink into sadness like that.
I resented the heavens.
I cursed god.
If I could, I wanted to rip them apart and drench myself in their blood! However… even that frustration died down soon.
The moment I realized I was dead, my rage became empty.
What remained, was just worry.”

He spat out the stale breath stuck at his throat before sitting back down again.
He was extremely agitated because he reminded himself of that event, but his eyes were surprisingly looking at the clock.
He felt that his tranquil reason was acting in contrast to his emotions.
It felt somewhat new.
Before, it was one of the two.
He either suppressed or released.
Right now, it was neither.
He felt as though he could get hot again and cold again within moments.
However, that feeling soon disappeared.
Reason and emotion started their territorial fight again and Maru started calming down

“That’s the end.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes.”

“I think there’s more.”

“A story only attracts interest when it’s cut mid way through the fun part.”

Hearing that answer, Hoyoung burst out laughing.
Maru calmly looked at the mood amongst the judges.
For now, he wasn’t stopped mid way.
This could be considered that he succeeded half way.
At that moment, the man wearing the baseball cap voiced out.

“Let’s have some more look at that fellow.”