“Good, cut! That was a good run.”
Seventeen times. Only after she ran the distance of 50 meters seventeen times repeatedly did the cut finally end. She found it hard to even sit down and calm her breathing. She wanted to lie down.
“Good job.”
Maru handed her a bottle of water. She was going to say ‘you too’ back to him, but she couldn’t say it because someone from the staff approached her and covered her shoulders with a blanket.
“It’s pretty chilly today, so you have to watch out for your body temperature.”
“Yes, unni,” she said to the staff member with a smile.
At first, she found it awkward that someone was looking after her even though she didn’t ask for it, but she became used to it after experiencing it a couple of times.
“Kim Yuna, Han Maru.”
Producer Jayeon called out to them. Yuna stood in front of the monitor. The footage they shot just now came up on the screen. The way she smiled brightly while running didn’t look awkward at all. When she saw how she glanced back from time to time to look at Maru, she even felt a little proud.
“Both of you, remember this feeling and take it to the next act. If we want to show the change in the cold and indifferent Yoon Jihae and the rather insensitive Park Haejoon in a short time, we must not miss trivial details like this. I’m going to have to dissolve two couples and one man’s worth of story in four episodes, so we don’t have that much leeway, understand?”
“Yes.”
“Cool off and fix your makeup. We’re going to continue right away. We actually have a lot of time left because it ended earlier than I expected, but we can’t have you putting down those emotions.”
Yuna left her face up to the makeup director[1]. She closed her eyes and when she opened them again, she saw that Maru was sitting next to her. The way he was reading his script while getting his makeup touched up made him look like a stereotypical pro. She thought about doing it herself and opened the script she placed next to her and lowered her gaze.
“Yuna, raise your head a little.”
She quickly said yes and took her eyes off the script. She tried to read the script, but she couldn’t stay still due to the makeup director. Can you open your eyes? Turn your head a little? Smile a little? She finished getting her makeup done after changing the position of her head as well as her expression according to the makeup director’s words.
“You go take care of that side. I’ll take care of this place.”
The person putting makeup on Maru grabbed their makeup tools and walked over to where the background actors were upon hearing the words of the makeup director. Yuna looked at Maru, who had been getting his makeup done while reading his script quietly for a while. He still had his eyes fixed on the script and muttered his lines from time to time. The makeup director took out some concealer. It seemed that she was going to cover up the blemishes on Maru’s chin.
Yuna thought that the makeup director would tell him to raise his head. After squeezing out the concealer from the tube onto her pinky, the makeup director kneeled down. She lowered her eye level and applied the concealer on his chin and cheeks before telling Maru that it was done.
“Thank you for your work.”
“I think we should leave the skin tone like this.”
“Yes, it’s not too catchy. I like it. Should we leave his hair like this?”
“It’s fine unless the director has something to say. It would instead be strange if it was too near after he supposedly ran with all his might in the scene right before. The character he’s playing doesn’t use any wax, so it’s fine to leave it slightly disheveled like that.”
“Okay.”
The two college students standing behind the makeup director tied the makeup tools. Yuna heard that they were here to gain experience. Yuna looked at the makeup director who explained her ways to the students behind her. Both Maru and herself were reading the script, so why was it that she didn’t say anything to seonbae? She met eyes with the makeup director, who was talking with a student. Yuna quickly lowered her head.
“You look like you’re dissatisfied.”
The makeup director approached her. Yuna quickly explained that it wasn’t like that.
“Then why were you looking at me like that? I’m a shy person, so I wouldn’t be able to get any sleep at night if someone looked at me like that.”
Yuna hesitated before starting to explain the reason,
“I was reading my script, yet you told me to lift my head, right?”
Hearing that, the makeup director seemed to have understood and nodded.
“So you felt it was unjust because I told you to move while I let Maru be?”
“No! It’s not like that. I was just curious about what was different between me and him.”
“I have one job. It is to put on makeup so that the actor’s charm is maximized. When I ask you to move your head, it is a justified request, right?”
“Yes.”
“This ahjumma, you know, I judge a person’s style after looking at them. There are people who will move if I tell them to, and there are people who won’t. It would be much easier to put makeup on someone who obediently follows my instructions, right?”
“Then did you think that seonbae won’t listen to your….”
“That’s not it.”
The makeup director interjected and looked at Maru, who was sitting a good distance away.
“Just like how my job is to put makeup on people, an actor’s job is to act. While I’m doing makeup work, if we consider the importance, of course I believe that acting practice takes priority. There are many people who can put on makeup, but there’s only one actor who can do the act. That’s why I tend to respect actors when they are focusing. If it’s something I can do by just taking a step further, then I will gladly do that. That’s the attitude of a person who gets paid to put on makeup. It’s also the proper way to treat a pro.”
The proper way to treat a pro. Yuna closed her lips when she heard those words. She immediately understood what that meant.
“If I have to go through an overhaul, I would of course tell him to put his script down and lift his head, but if it’s just this much, I should not interrupt him if possible. Tell me if you don’t like my ways. I’ll fix it.”
“No, I’ll do better from now on.”
“Yes, you can also do that.”
She couldn’t retort at all.
Yuna faintly sighed before sitting next to Maru.
“Seonbae.”
“Yeah?” Maru replied without taking his eyes off the script.
Yuna found him slightly hateful for not budging.
“How can I become a pro?”
“You’re a pro even now. You’re getting money from someone else’s pocket. That should be enough to be called a pro.”
“But there are differences.”
“Differences?”
“I want to act like you, seonbae. You know you’re the reason I started taking interest in acting, right?”
“You told me about it last time.”
“How can you act like that, seonbae? If it was the others, they’ve practiced more than me and are older than me, so I can understand, but….”
“I’m actually much older than I look.”
Maru glanced at her before looking at his script again. Yuna felt the corner of her lips twitching. It was because she heard from the makeup director that she wasn’t like a pro, but more than that, the words she heard from Maru during the running scene became vivid again and made her tremble.
“Seonbae, are you uncomfortable with me?”
Use what you can – Maru told her these words just an hour ago. The moment she heard those words, Yuna understood the implied meaning behind them. Adding his actions of putting distance between them since morning, there was nothing more to think about. Maru probably wanted to tell her to get rid of unnecessary emotions.
“It’s not that.”
“You told me, didn’t you? That people’s emotions don’t go away so easily and that you understand me. You also told me that I can treat you comfortably until I calm down my emotions.”
Maru closed his script. The ice-clear eyes looked at her. Yuna swallowed a groan. He had the same eyes as her mother two years ago on the anniversary of her father’s death. Back then, her mother hugged her and Bitna and said this: Mom will definitely protect both of you.
“Yuna, you can insult me for being inconsistent. The words I said that day was a mistake on my part. It’s not that I didn’t mean it. I just changed my mind.”
“Then….”
“I’ll say this clearly. It still doesn’t matter whether you like me or not. I will not mind it in the future either. If you gain anything by harboring those emotions; if you can sublimate those emotions into something related to acting, it would be okay, but if you can’t, I can tell you that you’d be better off if you put an end to those emotions as soon as possible.”
“I know, I know it too. I know that I can’t like you. But you know what? When you acted like nothing was wrong when you told me that you couldn’t contact Gaeul-unni, I ended up misunderstanding. I thought that I may have a chance.”
“It’s my fault.”
It was a clean apology. It felt like the counter employee quickly apologizing for a payment mistake. It sounded so detached. She felt dazed. For a brief moment, she even thought that she was hated. Perhaps he found her annoying for being so persistent.
The relationship between her and seonbae going wrong? She didn’t even want to imagine it. Leaving aside not liking her, she didn’t want to be hated. Yuna shook her head.
“No, I put that in a strange way.”
When she glanced at Maru’s face, she saw that it was frighteningly indifferent. She even got the feeling that talking to a wall might be a better idea. Did something happen to him over the past few days? It felt like someone completely different had taken the form of Han Maru and was standing in front of her.
At that moment, Maru lowered his frighteningly frosty gaze before lifting his gaze up again. A kind set of eyes had replaced it. It was the eyes of the seonbae who lent an ear and a shoulder to cry on to a person he met for the first time.
“Sorry for being so indecisive. Sorry for not acting like an adult. Sorry for not being clear to you.”
“Stop apologizing to me. You did nothing wrong.”
Yuna lowered her head with her fists clenched. It was the first time. Maru understood and accepted the worries that she couldn’t even tell her mother about. She was touched by his words that soothed her wounds, and she gained the courage to face acting head on. The reason she got selected in this drama and could act in it was all thanks to Maru as well. Her mentor and her first love kept apologizing to her. Yuna felt a big sense of fear. She was afraid that they would separate for good just like this and that everything might come to an end between them. She felt like she wouldn’t be able to hold back her tears if they became like friends who said hi to each other but no more.
The reason she held back from crying loudly and clinging to him was because of the word ‘pro’ that the makeup director mentioned. She couldn’t inconvenience everyone here. She didn’t want to make the foolish mistake of ruining everything because she was swayed by her personal emotions. She was determined to smile and say that she was okay, but her lips twitched endlessly and she couldn’t do as she wanted to. Stop beating so hard heart – Yuna clenched her eyes shut.
She quietly breathed out. She had to show that she was okay.
“Uhm, seonbae.”
When she opened her eyes, Maru was no longer in front of her. She found Maru looking at her from some distance away. Yuna blinked. She understood everything. This distance, this physical distance seemed to be representing the distance between their hearts.
She suddenly laughed. It was too easy. Even though she felt heart-shatteringly painful, even though she felt so agonized that her head was about to burst, she could control her emotions. Maru, who was watching her, gave her a nod before turning around without regrets.
Haa – Yuna sighed out. A tingling sensation climbed up from her toes. The moment the brain-shaking tremors died down, Yuna felt that her first love had come to a complete close.
“Seonbae, I’ll be off to the bathroom for a bit,” she said, her eyes clear.
Maru quietly took out some tissues for her. Yuna pouted but still accepted them. Her footsteps towards the bathroom became faster and faster. By the time she reached the building with the bathroom in it, she was almost running – Ah, today’s a day filled with running. Yuna abruptly opened the door and slammed it shut. She turned on the tap to full power and sat on the toilet after putting the cover down. Then she cried. She thought while crying: what do I tell the makeup director?
“This is what being a pro is about, huh?”
Goddammit – she cried again after seeing the makeup on the tissue. A moment later, she laughed. She repeatedly switched between laughing and crying several times before standing in front of the mirror. Although her face didn’t look terrible because the makeup was thin, there were definitely places that had to be fixed up.
“Let’s do this, Kim Yuna. Tell’em who’s boss.”
She calmed down her expression before returning to the shooting location. It seemed that they were almost ready to shoot as some of the staff started restricting people from coming inside.
“You’re here?” Maru said.
“Yes, I’m here.”
Yuna replied firmly, to the point that it even surprised her. Her heart felt heavy, yet refreshed.
“Can you do it?”
“Of course.”
“Then please take care of me from now on.”
Maru reached his hand out. Yuna stared at that hand for a while before making a scissor shape with her fingers.
Scissor and paper; after looking at the two hands for a while, Maru smiled and retracted his hand.
“Please take care of me, seonbae.”
Yuna said as she pulled her hand away.
[1] Here, the ‘director’ doesn’t mean that she’s related to the filming. She’s the director (or ‘headmistress’ in British English) of a makeup school that she runs.
