Life, Once Again!

Chapter 868. Sequence 13

This was her second time visiting a writer’s house. Hyunjin was filled with expectations. What kind of lifestyle did the creator of the work she featured in live? The previous writer’s house she had been to was a cozy, yet elegant place. She was a female writer who had just reached forty, and she only had items that were necessary for living, saying that she strived to live a simple life. It was similar to the minimalist life that was the trend these days. The conversation she had in the space where the work was born was very meaningful. That writer broke her misconception that those who made a living off writing would be overly sensitive.

Writer Lee Eunbin’s drama always contained warm, humane affection. Her residence must be a cozy and warm-feeling place as well. Perhaps there might be cute dolls. She pressed the bell and waited for a while when a voice inside told them to come in. Maru pulled open the door.

“It’s messy but come inside.”

Writer Lee Eunbin greeted them, wearing a t-shirt that reached all the way to her knees. Hyunjin stopped in front of the porch. Even the shoe rack was a total mess. How could one high heel be on top of the shoe rack, while the other one was on the porch? There was a pair of striped slippers right next to a gray pair of sneakers, which god knows what color they used to be. Many of the shoes here looked like they belonged in the garbage. She slowly moved her eyes away from the slippers. She saw a box of pizza as well as other empty boxes of food. Beer cans, coffee cans, and even what seemed to be cat food cans took a portion of the floor area as well. The indoor bicycle in one corner of the living room had laundry hanging off it, and beneath that was a duvet. Hyunjin could not even begin to understand why a duvet would be in a place like that.

“Was it like this the last time you came here?” she asked Maru quietly.

“No. Back then, director Jayeon came first and did some cleaning, so it was rather clean. I did hear that she doesn’t do much cleaning if she’s busy, but I didn’t know that things were this bad.”

Maru scanned the living room with eyes that looked as though he was a soldier that had just heard news of defeat. He seemed to be muttering something, and she heard words like ‘this needs a big cleanup’ or something along those lines. Hyunjin took off her sneakers and went inside. Although the apartment looked messy as though it had been abandoned in the middle of the night, it strangely smelled rather fragrant. It seemed to be the power of the scented diffusers placed throughout. She could see deodorizers placed everywhere. So she was a writer who could handle visual messiness but not foul stenches?

“I heard from Jayeon. I’m Lee Eunbin. We met during the get-together, didn’t we?”

“Yes. Back then, I was so out of it that we didn’t get to talk much.”

“I left too early, didn’t I?”

Hyunjin just laughed it off. On the day of the first read-through, Eunbin didn’t seem to be in a good condition and left the get-together early, severely drunk.

“Would you like to have a talk first?” Maru said as he took off his jacket.

When Eunbin asked why, Maru quietly pointed at the empty pizza box. A cat, which was grooming her fur on top of the pizza box, slowly got up and moved away.

“I’m going to clean up a little.”

“It’s fine, you can leave it.”

“No, I’m not fine with it. I got a disease after I started living alone, so I start to feel anxious if I stay in a messy place.”

He didn’t sound like he was joking. When Eunbin said she’d help, Maru stopped her.

“You can get to discussing ideas for now. I’m sure that’s what’s more urgent. I’ll join you after I clean this place up just a little. Or if it’s anything important, you can just say it in a loud voice, and I’ll try to reply.”

Maru picked up the clothes littered across the floor. Eunbin swiftly picked up the underwear and put them away. Whether it was Maru who was cleaning with fire in his eyes, or Eunbin, who was watching him in contentment, Hyunjin could not understand either of them. In the past ten minutes, she came across two incomprehensible incidents. The world was a strange place.

“Then shall we begin by ourselves?”

“Yes.”

Eunbin brought some canned coffee. There was a box full of it right next to the fridge.

“I enjoyed watching your act. I was applauding because the atmosphere I saw was the atmosphere I wanted to see.”

“That was nothing. It was me who had fun enjoying acting because of the good lines. You’re an amazing writer.”

“It’s been a while since I heard a compliment like that. Jayeon always says it’s okay, but she never says it’s good. Not only that, she even secretly gives me pressure. She has zero respect towards an unni.”

“The director is a little strict. But that’s why the results are good.”

“Sometimes, it’s good to give praise, even if you don’t mean it, but she’s somewhat too realistic and detached from the world.”

“Sometimes, she does show such a side from time to time.”

When things didn’t go her way during shoots, Jayeon would scream like a madwoman. Even male producers known to be strict did not touch producer Jayeon once she flipped. Hyunjin saw Eunbin clap her hands as she agreed. It seemed that she quite liked this unintentional behind-the-back talk.

“Err, you are discussing things, right?” Maru asked, poking his head into the living room.

He was holding a cat by the scruff of its neck with one hand and a bag of trash in the other.

“Interaction is important when having a conversation. Things are going very well, so don’t you worry. I feel like I’ll get along with Miss Hyunjin here and get many good ideas.”

“If that’s the case, then I’m glad.”

Maru disappeared once again, saying that he would come back and participate soon. There was enough space to lie down in the living room now when there was barely enough to step foot before. His talent for cleaning was as good as his talent for acting.

“Maru, that kid is pretty strange too. Then again, how many people are normal among the people who get along with Jayeon, right?”

Aren’t you one of them, writer? – these words reached her front teeth, but Hyunjin just smiled and replied, ‘that’s true.’ A writer who created stories that contained human affections in a chaotic place that made people’s minds messy just by looking –that was her first impression of writer Eunbin.

“Shall I hear your story then?” Eunbin said as she placed her hands on her laptop.

“What story?”

She couldn’t think of anything when she was told to talk about a ‘story’ all of a sudden.

“Tell me about the ‘Yoomin’ that you acted, Miss Hyunjin.”

“Don’t you know that better than I do, writer?”

“No, I actually don’t know everything about all the characters. Of course, I know more than most other people know. I did create them after all. However, once that turns into a script and the script goes into the hands of the actor, those characters sometimes undergo a change, right?”

Eunbin looked like a completely different person as she spoke while tying her hair behind her back. She turned from a hysteric auntie who couldn’t get married and had terrible cleaning habits into a genius artist with a strange perk. Receiving a gaze full of expectation made it even more difficult to talk. Analyzing a character was something that all actors did. Just as Eunbin said, the writer would pass on the character to the actor in the form of a script, and the actor would repeatedly interpret and reinterpret the character based on the script they receive. In such a process, there would be cases where opinions that the original creator did not intend would appear and end up changing the nature of the character. The extent of that would vary according to how much the actor stays true to the script, or how they want to emphasize their own traits.

Hyunjin strived towards being faithful to the script. She placed importance in expressing the world that the writer created with minimum loss. This applied even when she first came across the character ‘Yoomin.’ When the director specifically requested her to do something differently, she would do so, but otherwise, she stuck to the script as much as possible.

“I acted Yoomin as truthfully to your description of her as possible. I pushed aside my own interpretation and stayed faithful to the script and the direction.”

“I felt that way too, until last week’s episode, that is. You expressed the text I wrote very truthfully to the point that it even surprised me. I was thankful for that, but it also sometimes frustrated me.”

“Was my acting skill that frustrating?”

“No, I’m not saying that your acting was frustrating. I meant that I was frustrated that I would be disappointed in my own writing. The actor has a complete understanding of the script, but the results still aren’t good. That means that the responsibility lies within the writer, doesn’t it? That was why I wanted actors like you to act on their own accord from time to time. That way, I would be able to escape the sense of guilt from the fact that my writing was what caused the bad results. It’s just a form of escapism for a terrible writer.”

Eunbin waved her hand in dismissal and laughed. She was really honest. Although it was a little burdensome, she didn’t feel uncomfortable with it. Hyunjin, who was smiling back at her, asked a question. There was something that tugged at her mind among what Eunbin said.

“You said until last week. Does that mean that you thought differently this week?”

“To my eyes, yes. Also, the viewers seem to have felt it as well. No matter how good a story is, if the actor that recreates the story is no fun, people do not rave about it. But there is already talk about episodes 7 and 8 circulating around, right? I know it’s somewhat wrong of me to say this since it’s like putting myself on a pedestal, but the first reason is that the story is good, and the second reason is that the actors provoked sympathy within people. If text could convey everything, dramas wouldn’t exist, would they?”

Eunbin emptied the coffee can in one go and brought another one. From her speed of drinking, it seemed that the box of canned coffee wouldn’t even last a week.

“Honestly, I’m not asking for amazing ideas. It’s my job to come up with things like that. What I want from you is inspiration. It might feel like I'm boasting again, but I really study a lot before I work. I already have the basis of a lot of stories inside me already. However, they’re in a messy state, so without a flash of inspiration, or in other words, a guide, I cannot take them out properly. Given enough time, I might be able to find it while probing my way through the dark, but we’re running short on time now. I want to listen to everything that you felt about Yoomin while you acted. It’s fine even if it’s trivial. It’ll be even better if it’s something you personally wondered about. I wouldn’t ask for more if you had anything that you thought should have changed. That’s what idea discussions are about. It’s like trying to find treasure amidst trinkets. To do that, we need trinkets first. Of course, I’m not saying that your thoughts are nothing more than trinkets. It’s just a figure of speech.”

“You’re saying that anything’s fine?”

If there was no fixed topic, she had a lot to say. She had been shooting for months after all. Eunbin narrowed her eyes before looking at Maru who was cleaning outside the living room.

“Honestly speaking, I want a huge quantity of ordered data like what Maru gave me, but only slightly weird people do things like that.”

“A huge quantity of ordered data?”

Hyunjin turned her laptop around and showed her the screen. She then opened up a word document with the title ‘Bigfoot,’ inside which was a huge quantity of text.

“It’s the past, present, and future of Bigfoot that even I never thought about. Would actors normally analyze a minor character who doesn’t even have that many lines to such an extent? I wouldn’t think so. This is closer to paranoia and obsession. And looking at him, he seems to be something of a clean freak too.”

The amount of detail about the character was surprisingly large. Like she said, it was a huge quantity of data. Hyunjin turned around to look at Maru. What the hell was the identity of the man who was currently wrestling with a cat?

“Do you have something like this?” Eunbin asked.

The answer was simple. Hyunjin shook her head vigorously. She wouldn’t even analyze a main character to such depths.