慈禧太后的秘密

Chapter 192

“I’ll get going, mom.”

Daemyung stepped out of the house after saying goodbye to his mother. The sky was bright blue. Normally he would’ve stretched happily in weather like this, but he was in no mood to do so right now.

‘I hope big bro Mintae’s doing alright.’

He was doing his best with Mintae to make some progress into their production project. Unfortunately, they were stuck. Currently, Daemyung’s goal in the project was to produce a play with three people before opening the project to investors.

Daemyung got onto the bus headed towards school, it was packed with other students. Several female students were in front of him as a matter of fact. In the past, he would’ve looked down in nervousness. Out of fear that the girls would be laughing at him on the inside, but he’d realized at this point that people don’t care so much about others.

‘And if they do, so what? It’s not like I’d need to form a relationship with them anyway.’

Daemyung slowly observed the people inside the bus. There was a man in a suit with waxed hair, probably a new hire. Or maybe he just has a very troublesome boss. Or maybe he’s even a perfectionist?

‘A perfectionist character sounds pretty fun.’

Daemyung’s eyes drifted over to a girl this time, she was wearing a high school uniform from a very famous school. She was holding onto the handle with one hand, and a notebook in the other. She was exchanging words with the businessman next to her every once in a while. Words about her studies.

“Math?”

“Nope, English first.”

“What about Physics?”

“That comes last. It really hurts my head.”

“That’s when you pick up Korean literature. To take a breather.”

“Yup.”

Daemyung slowly mouthed the conversation he was hearing, lines from a play needed to be as realistic as possible a lot of the time. Practicing like this would help him very much in creating a three-dimensional character later down the line.

“What the heck? Is that guy following our words?”

“No way.”

Daemyung quickly closed his mouth in surprise. Eventually, the bus came to a stop near his school. He checked the clock after getting off. 8am. He still had a lot of time. As he took a step towards the school entrance, he felt a slap on his back.

“Good morning!”

“Ah, morning.”

It was Iseul. The girl who was always smiling.

“Where’s Dojin?”

“How would I know?”

“A-ah.”

Dojin and Iseul started dating at the beginning of the semester, Iseul seemed pretty hesitant at first. She apparently changed her mind when Dojin really started helping her family out.

“How’s the acting club? You guys only have a week left, right?”

“We have two juniors for now.”

“And?”

“...The end.”

“Didn’t you say there were a lot of juniors who came?”

“There were only two who were interested enough to join. I was pretty excited too, but it can’t be helped.”

“So it’s just four people in total.”

Daemyung nodded. Four people, the third years were only there in name.

“That’s troublesome. You can’t even do anything with just four people.”

“We’ll have to find a play with fewer people. Or take on multiple roles at once.”

“Think you guys can handle that?”

“...Dunno. I think Maru can.”

“What the, scared already? You need to be a role model for the juniors.”

“You know I’m not good at that kind of stuff.”

“Well, better get practicing then. You and Maru are the only capable ones in the club now.”

Iseul pat his back one more time. Unfortunately, this just made Daemyung want to sigh more. Could they even get anywhere with four people? It was a horrifically low number, he wasn’t even sure if they could make a stage.

“Hey, stop making a face like that. You’re making me feel guilty.”

Daemyung waved his hands in denial after seeing Iseul looking at him dejectedly. He must’ve shown his feelings while he thought to himself.

“No no, don’t worry. Seriously.”

“How can I not? If you need someone to help you make props, just let me know. I’ll be really sad if you don’t!”

“Y-yeah.”

They’d be perpetually shorthanded from now on, there wasn’t much they could get done with just four people. It wasn’t like they could keep asking for help from others though. Maru told him already that getting help once from someone was bad enough.

- The guys would help us out every time if we asked. That’s exactly why we need to do this ourselves. They are outsiders now. We don’t want to make them do unnecessary stuff just because we’re lacking in people.

Maru wasn’t wrong, the acting club needed to take care of itself.

“Eh? What’s that truck?”

Iseul commented just as they were about to get into the school, a truck towing a shipping container was slowly entering the school. The teacher guarding the entrance looked with wide eyes, he clearly didn’t know anything about this either.

“If you could let us in, sir,” said the truck driver.

The teacher quickly had a talk with the driver. After a few nods, the teacher led the truck inside, a forklift behind the truck followed them inside as well. Daemyung watched all of this dumbly before realizing something, he dialled Maru’s number on the phone. After a bit of waiting, someone finally picked up.

“Maru, um...”

- Sorry, I’m not Maru.

“What?”

- Maru went to the convenience store for a bit. He’ll be back soon. Call him again in five.

“Ah, yes.”

He’s heard the voice somewhere else, he couldn’t tell who because of the background noise. Daemyung said goodbye to Iseul before following the truck to the back of the school, the forklift was positioning the container at this point.

“There’s no way, right?”

Maru did talk about a container, but it was impossible to have it here already. They needed the school’s permission. More than that, they needed money.

“Good! Put it over there!”

It was a pretty clean container. Big, too. If only they could use that… Daemyung watched for a few minutes more before heading back to the class.

“I saw a truck coming in. What was that? I thought we were done with building the gym,” Dojin asked.

“They’re putting a shipping container behind the school.”

“A container? Maru?”

“Don’t think so. He mentioned that on Saturday. No way he got permission in two days. It’s also like 2 million won.”

“2 million? Yeah, there’s no way then.”

That’s when Dowook raised his head from his desk.

“Container? You guys need one?”

“Yeah? Yeah. We might.”

“Tell me if you do. I can ask my dad about it.”

“Really? You guys have a shipping container?”

“There’s an unused container right behind the gas station. I’m sure my dad will sell it for cheap if I tell him Maru needs it.”

That was good news. It was a mystery how much the man would sell it for, but as long as it was below market price...

“Wow, rich people are different after all.”

“Rich my ass.”

Dojin smiled as he tickled Dowook. Dowook stood right up and tried to grab Dojin, prompting the other boy to run out of the classroom with a shout. What good friends. They all got off to a bad start, but they’ve all become very good friends.

“So energetic. Running so early in the morning are we?”

He heard Maru’s voice from behind him, Daemyung turned around in surprise.

“...Did you stay up?”

“Eh? Ah, kind of.”

Maru looked horrible. His bedhead was incredible and his clothes were kind of dirty. Looking now, they were the clothes he’s been wearing since Saturday.

“Ah! That was Senior Geunsoo on the phone, wasn’t it? Were you guys together since Saturday?”

“Yup. I was imprisoned.”

“I-imprisoned?”

“It was fun though.”

Maru sat down with a long yawn, he started taking out convenience store food from his black bag and ate them.

“You didn’t even have breakfast?”

“I have been in a car since dawn. Didn’t have the time.”

“What the hell did you do over the weekend?”

“I told you, I was imprisoned.”

Maru grinned and told Daemyung he’d explain himself after the meal.

“What was that about the container by the way? Dowook spoke to me about it as he ran just now.”

“There’s a container at school.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that. You didn’t do this, did you?”

“I had plans, but nope. Why do we...”

Right then, Maru’s phone rang. Maru took the call immediately, he lowered his voice as he spoke to the person on the other side. His expression was a bit odd.

“Yes, thank you. I appreciate the gesture.”

Maru smiled lightly after hanging up.

“What? What’s happening?”

“The container is a gift from Mr. Junmin. He already talked to the school about it. Hah, Senior Geunsoo did tell me something was going to happen, but...”

“So the container behind the school is...”

“It’s ours.”

“Really?”

The world around Daemyung instantly brightened. If that container was theirs, their prop issue was fixed. That alone was a big plus.

“Let’s start our move after today. We can get it done by the end of this week if we start now.”

Maru spoke as he took the wrapping off of his kimbap.

* * *

Geunseok thought with his chin resting on his hand, his father told him out of nowhere that he could continue acting. There was a condition, but it was nothing big. He was within the top three of the school all this time.

‘Mr. Junmin definitely has an eye for talent.’

Junmin was the one who persuaded his father, that person must treasure Geunseok very much.

‘But what do I do?’

Geunseok had no intentions of returning to the club, he’d rather give up acting entirely. Thinking about the humiliation he suffered from Maru made him grit his teeth subconsciously. Those arrogant eyes… He should’ve thrown a punch back then.

- If you’re going to do something, go all out.

Those were the words his father told him. Now that he’d gotten permission, there was nothing stopping his path. All he had to do was to show off his talent.

- You too need to learn how to lie. You need to learn how to compliment others. You need to learn how to be trampled like your brother if need be.

Hearing that was even more humiliating than the time with Maru. Being compared to his older brother… As the more talented brother, the thought was absolutely shameful. It was so obvious that Geunseok was better, especially since Junmin was eyeing him.

Geunseok smiled.

“Become kind, huh.”

He’d learned a thing or two about life through this, he needed to learn how to act wisely like Maru. For now, he’d start off with turning his classmates into his allies. Geunseok went around the classroom dropping a few words here and there. Many of his classmates listened to him thanks to their good impressions of him.

“They were too much. They kicked you out just because of that?”

“Yeah, seriously. Geunseok, you’re too kind. You should’ve been more firm.”

“I mean, you’re the reason why the club succeeded in the first place.”

Geunseok smiled, so it was this easy. He shouldn’t have tried to use force at all in the beginning.

‘Father was right.’

Humans needed to learn how to stay low, they needed to learn to compliment. Just a few smiles and a few words here and there already earned Geunseok so many allies.

“By the way, you can create your own club as long as you have a few people, right?”

“Yup. As long as you have an advisor and a few members.”

Geunseok nodded at the vice president’s words, Junmin told him about this previously. Clearly, the man wants Geunseok to succeed.

“Really? Can you help me out then? I think I can count on you.”

“Of course.”

The vice president stepped up with a big smile. So this was it, this was how you use people.

“Thank you.”

Geunseok had a feeling he’d be using the phrase a lot more in the future. He was confident of it, in fact. This too was but an extension of acting.

‘So easy.’

A twisted smile creeped its way out of his lips.

Thank you.

What an easy phrase to take advantage of.