-’Doctors’ will get better views than ‘Doctor’s Office’, right?
“We’ll have to see about that.”
-What do I do if it does bad?
“And why are you worried about that?”
-Because I’m one of the cast. I might be one of the minor ones, but I’ll still be on the screen. Moreover, I have a line too.
“You’ll see the results if you show up on TV next Wednesday, so just wait for it. You are not the one who’s going to write apologies if the viewing rates are low, so don’t overreact.”
-You don’t feel nervous at all since you shot a few dramas already, Mr. Han Maru?
“Bluntly speaking, I’m just a minor character. Rather than that, why did you call me? You didn’t call me just to complain, did you?”
There was no way that Hyungseok called just to chat early in the morning.
-You haven’t heard from Sora?
“Sora?”
-There’s no way she told me about it first, though.
Hyungseok seemed hesitant about whether he should talk about it or not. Just then, his front door started thudding. Not only did he get an uninvited call in the morning, but there was also an uninvited guest now as well.
“Seonbae! Open the door!”
Before he even opened the door, the guest outside revealed her identity. Maru hung up the call and opened the door. Sora, wearing a gray two-buttoned coat, was glaring up at him. Before he could ask why, she barged inside.
“This looks a lot more habitable than before. They say that being in love will change their environment and sure enough it seems to be true. Oh? There’s even a cactus. Are you raising it?”
“I’m not raising a cactus to eat it, so probably.”
“Woofie, noona’s here.”
“She’s a girl.”
“Then unni’s here.”
Woofie tried to get away from Sora while limping due to one of her legs; however, she soon got caught. Woofie would even react joyously to a thief entering the house, but from how she was rolling her eyes nervously, she seemed to remember that the woman who was holding her was a strange prankster. After all, she had to offer her cheeks until they became mushy paste the last time Sora made a visit. Even now, Sora was pulling on her cheeks and twisting them from side to side.
“Hyungseok called me just now, asking if I heard anything from you.”
“That’s what I’m here to tell you.”
“Err, it looks like you forgot, but there’s something called a phone, you know? Showing up to someone’s house like this unnoticed doesn’t seem to fit with the times.”
“Affection disappears because of those selfish products of civilization. If I have something to say, I will say it in person. It’s a warm expression of affection in the modern age. Isn’t that right Woofie?”
“What were you going to do if I wasn’t at home?”
“There’s no way you aren’t at home. You’re someone who cleans your house if you don’t have any appointments. If you weren’t here, I would have used that new product of civilization known as a phone but here you are,” Sora said as she grabbed Woofie’s front paw.
“So? Why are you here? Rather than that, don’t you have work? It’s Thursday morning.”
“I applied for a vacation. I had to use my vacation early when I originally planned to use it all at once in the winter. Rather than that, get changed quickly. I can’t have the main actor appear like that in front of the audience.”
“In front of the audience? What do you mean?”
“You didn’t know? There’s a GV[1] of our film today. It’ll première at 3 for 25 minutes, and after that, there are 40 minutes of GV.”
“And why haven’t I heard of this before?”
“Because I haven’t told you about it?”
Sora took out a leaflet from her bag and tossed it to him. It was a guide leaflet to the Ttukseom Indie Film Festival. When he opened it, he saw a film titled ‘Starting Point’ among the ‘short film’ lineup. Directed by Kang Sora, cast: Han Maru, Yoo Sooil. He hadn’t even heard that it was finished, yet he was being notified that it was ready to be released.
“I was going to send it to the Seoul Indie Film Festival, but I sent it here because I thought it would be more fun, and I got contacted saying that they want to promote this to the regular works from the competition. It would have been even better if it was promoted to the released works, but that’s for directors who have proven themselves, so I can’t really help it.”
“Regular works?”
“They’re saying that this would become a hot topic. I mean, Yoo Sooil is in it. There’s nothing better than this in order to attract interest to an indie film festival. It would be great if they could focus on the film itself, but well, I’m not too worried. This is the first step after all. Whether it’s for the film festival or us.”
Sora ran around the kitchen with Woofie held high. He looked at the outline of the film festival leaflet to see the works being featured. It was a new film festival that began this year, and it was sponsored by Seoul’s City Hall as well as some film distributors. As this was the first year, they would want to attract attention just like Sora said, and the name Yoo Sooil must have sounded tempting to them.
“How about Sooil?”
“I gave him a call, but he said he doesn’t think he’ll make it because of the schedule. He’s busy, so I can’t help it. Him being here would flip the festival upside down. What a pity.”
“If he comes, it won’t be a film festival anymore; it will become Yoo Sooil’s fan meetup. But hey, what were you going to do if I had something to do? Though, there are a lot of cases where directors participate in the GV by themselves.”
“I’ll say this again; there’s no way that could have happened. I can’t imagine you scheduling an appointment early in the morning. If it was work, then maybe.”
As much as he wanted to retort, Sora was probably aware of the schedule of a semi-unemployed man.
“What about the others?”
“Jiyoon-unni said she won’t make it because of work, and the others all said they would participate. But hey, why are you standing still? Go get changed.”
He changed his clothes because of the urging. When he came back out wearing a knitted shirt and a pair of jeans, Sora scanned him from top to bottom and nodded, saying that he didn’t look bad.
“Isn’t it a little too early considering that it starts at 3?”
It was just past 10. If the film festival occurred in Busan then it was understandable, but Ttukseom was in the middle of Seoul. It was 30 minutes by car from Banpo, where he lived.
“I took the day off, so it’s somewhat awkward for me to stay at home.”
“That’s why you barged in here? In order to kill time?”
“Do you think I’m such a free person? Woofie, your daddy really looks down on people, doesn’t he?”
Woofie, who was in Sora’s arms, seemed to have gotten exhausted after struggling as all of her four arms were drooping. He grabbed the dog by her neck and took her away from Sora before putting her down on the floor. He was supposed to be the owner, so he had to help her out at times like this. Sora looked at the running Woofie in pity. Maru wondered how much she wanted to hold her in order to be satisfied.
“Why don’t you raise one yourself?”
“A dog? I don’t want to. There are many things I have to look out for if I want to raise one. I’ll just be satisfied with doting on other people’s pets. Though, I might get one and dote it when I’m wholly able to take responsibility for one.”
Sora took a last glance at Woofie before putting her shoes on, saying that they should depart. He left his house after putting some dog food in the bowl. When he went down to the parking lot, Sora was waiting for him in front of his car.
“Chauffeur, start the car.”
“I’m a slave, aren’t I?”
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
As soon as Sora got on the passenger seat, Sora started sniffing.
“I really have to give it to you for being clean. You wash your car pretty often, don’t you?”
“I do it whenever I don’t have anything to do.”
“So you do it every day? No wait, you started a drama, so, once every two days?”
“I’m not saying anything. So, where are we going?”
“I’ll type the address into your map.”
Sora inputted the address into the GPS map. It wasn’t that far away. He thought about asking what place it was before just starting his car. It was obvious that she wouldn’t answer even if he asked.
“Nice of you for not asking. You’ll see when we get there.”
He took a glance at Sora. She would be a great fortune-teller.
The car got stopped by a traffic light. A child, who was waiting by the pedestrian crossing, could be seen raising his hand up in the air as he crossed. Next to him, a woman who seemed to be his mother patted him on the head and grabbed his hand.
“Iseul-unni’s proposal was cool, wasn’t it?” Sora said, her eyes fixed on the mother-son duo on the crossing.
“I could tell that she prepared a lot. It was also fun watching Dojin being dumbfounded. He probably had it hard. I’m sure he must have been anxious because Iseul didn’t reply to his proposal.”
“Dojin-oppa looked like he was crying when she gave him a ring, right?”
“He himself would never admit it though.”
“I thought that proposals were cheesy and meaningless stuff, but it felt really good to watch them prepare and actually execute it. You only live once anyway, plus you’re preparing an event for your once-in-a-lifetime partner.”
“I heard that divorce rates are as high as 40% recently. And even worse when you’re talking about divorce rates in later years.”
“You just have to ruin everything, don’t you?”
“It’s because I’m starting to feel anxious. I see the destination in front of me.”
At the top of the glass wall were colorful letters that said ‘Party Supplies.’ Sora quickly told him to get off and dragged him inside. There was only one thing if she came to ‘Party Supplies’ after talking about proposals.
“Is this why you didn’t say anything?”
“It’s obvious that you won’t do it if I mentioned it, so why would I? Come quick. We’re already late.”
“So the almighty Kang Sora will hold an event and ask Koo Ando out?”
“It’s a total surprise, isn’t it? A surprise that no one expects.”
It would be a big surprise for sure. Maru was even worried that Ando might run away because he was too surprised. What would he do if an event was held for him and he was asked out when he said that dating is a luxury in his current situation? Unlike Sora, who always recklessly charged ahead without a plan, Ando was someone who would worry about things first. The two were on the extreme ends of each other, whether it was their personalities or action patterns, so it might bring about an opposite effect instead.
“Err, Sora. Have you heard that confession is not a challenge but an affirmation?”
“I’m not sure. Isn’t confession about guts, courage, and gambling?” Sora said as she opened the door to the party supplies store.
She went inside as though it wasn’t even worth mentioning.
“Did you make any progress in the past few weeks?”
“No, Ando-seonbae gets frightened stiff like a rat in front of a snake whenever I give him the slightest hint. Though, that’s fun in itself too.”
Sora looked at a heart-shaped candle and asked if it wasn’t pretty. He wanted to ask her to refrain if she was planning to lay them out on the floor.
“Childish things are good.”
“You should think about Ando’s feelings too.”
“If I keep doing that, I might as well become a granny. He keeps increasing his worries like a loan shark would with interest, so I can’t keep watching.”
“It’s because he has a cautious personality.”
“I know that. That’s his charm as well as his downside. How about this one? I think the balloon would look pretty nice.”
“Where are you going to put it?”
“Now, I wonder where.”
Seeing her smile like a devious fox, Maru was suddenly reminded of Woofie at home. To be precise, he was reminded of Woofie’s house. Sora’s gaze, looking around his house after barging inside in the morning, suddenly made him feel chills as though he just encountered a plot twist in a movie.
“It doesn’t happen to be our house, is it?”
“Seonbae, do you think I’m so shameless?”
“Right? You aren’t so shameless, right?”
“Of course. You can’t call that ‘our’ house. It’s ‘your’ house. I admit to people’s private properties. So I’m going to use your house for a little while.”
“What if I say no?”
“I saw that the space in front of your porch was really wide.”
“Absolutely not.”
“So inside it is, right? We don’t want to cause any inconvenience to the neighbors after all. You have really deep thinking after all. You even love your neighbors. How about this one? I think we need something colorful because your walls are all gray.”
Sora smiled as she picked up a large flag with characters on it like the flags of the world. She seemed like she was thinking about the afterparty, not the confession.
“Now then, I wonder what will look good.”
He shook his head seeing Sora’s expectant face.
[1] Guest visit. A little like a premiere where the director and the main cast may show up.
