Chapter 59

“I think you’ll have to.”

“What?”Miso looked like she just fished something big out of the waters. Maru turned the page of the two scripts. He saw the titles, the synopsis that Miso wrote, and… The characters.“Fifteen, sixteen...”There were a total of twelve members in the club. Significantly less than the number of characters in the play.“You can at least play the role of a passerby, can’t you?”“So this is how you’re going to do this?”“What, you can’t? This isn’t going to take much time. Come on, just a few lines?”“You know I can’t invest that much time into the club.”“Doesn’t matter. You’ll get it quick.”Maru glanced behind him. A few of the students looked excited, a few annoyed, and a few disinterested.“Can I join?”The question was directed at the members.“Of course! We’d be happy!”Yoonjung was the first to answer. As a matter of fact, all of the second years seemed pretty excited about the prospect. Maru turned to the first years.“Do what you want. I don’t care.”“Don’t care!”Taejoon and Iseul seemed to be neutral.“Well… I’m sure he’ll make a good decision.”“Hmph!”Geunseok and Yurim were sending signals for him to not participate. And…“I’ll teach you acting, son!”“Join us.”“Do it.”Dojin, Daemyung and Soyeon didn’t even hesitate. Maru turned back to look at Miso.“I know you drew a line, but you can still participate at least a little, can’t you?” Miso whispered with a wink.She was being persistent, but not enough to be annoying. It was kind of as if she was asking him for a small favor. Maru was sure that even if he refused her here, she wouldn’t be too disappointed. She’d probably find a different way to make him join.‘Toge...ther.’Maru had made up his mind to switch clubs after this year. It wasn’t like he was sick of acting, but he wanted to get a different experience altogether. Helping out Soojin was enough in terms of doing acting. He was actually thinking of joining the Chinese Language club, actually. The prospect of learning Chinese sounded pretty good to him.‘I’m going to switch clubs anyway, so...’MIght as well spend the next half year with a little more effort for the club.“Please treat me well, then.”“No way, I’ll flipping murder you if you do badly. I won’t hold you for long during practice, though. You’re going to be an extra anyway, hehe.”Miso grinned toothily, seeming happy with the fact that she managed to snag him into participating. Maru sighed inwardly in relief. Refusing the woman so much did seem to have a bit of an impact on him. Accepting her request just this once made him feel a whole lot better. “Alright! The whole club’s going to be in on this play! Let’s choose which one we want to do then, shall we? Raise your hand if you like the play I call out. We’re going to go democratic here. Starting off, Critical Mass!”Miso’s voice seemed to have a little more vibrancy than usual, for some reason.

* * *Maru took out his script the first thing he came back home. It was The People of Dalseok-dong. Funnily enough, everyone in the club decided to go with this one, including him.‘Maybe Miso had a pretty good grasp on what the other kids liked already.’Leaders needed to know the people they lead. And according to Miso herself, she had an eye for people. As proof, twelve students in the club all chose one play. This couldn’t just be coincidence.“A teen, huh.”The character had no name and was never called out by anyone else either. He was just… a teenager. That was the character Maru was in charge of. He had very few lines, too. Just three. But he would appear in up to five scenes. He was supposed to be one of those passersby who would look at a situation and shout ‘Eh?!’ and disappear. Basically, a part of the environment. A character that wouldn’t take anything away from the play even if he was removed completely. At least, that’s how Maru saw the character.