Life, Once Again!

stake.
If I can get a finished cut during that process, I will be satisfied.”

Jayeon turned around as she brushed up her hair with her hand.
Yuna also left the set.
Her footsteps were heavy.

“Why do you look so dejected?”

Ganghwan was standing in front of her.
Behind him, she saw Byungjae, Mira, and Maru as well.

“I’m sorry, it’s all because of me….”

She didn’t know until yesterday that not being able to act the way she wanted was such a frustrating thing.
She had the urge to cry.
If she was by herself right now, she might have been sniffling.

“Is your act not going well?”

“Yes.”

“Did you try everything you prepared?”

“I think I did.”

“Thinking that you did and actually doing it is strictly different.
You know that, right?”

Yuna nodded.

“What should I do? I don’t get it.
Was my preparation not enough?”

“I wouldn’t know that.
We didn’t practice together after all.
Do you want to try doing it here? What are seniors for? We should help out in a time like this,” Ganghwan said as he looked behind him.

The eyes of the staff were directed their way.
Yuna felt like all the eyes in this place were looking at her.
She felt her heart race, but there was no reason to hesitate.
She started acting immediately.
She was in dire need of advice right now.

After acting, she looked at the four.

“You did that?”

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t look bad to me,” Ganghwan said.

Yuna then had a look at Maru.
He was the first person to shock her when she watched his acting and was the one who helped her out with coming up with her new resolve, so she felt like she could trust his opinion.

“I also think it was okay though.
There might be a difference in taste, but don’t you think that it’s worth keeping?” Maru said.

Ganghwan nodded in agreement.

“It wasn’t too bad.
If you were awful, then I would have said so.
What I saw, though, was really decent for your age.
You’d also be in the top few among the people I have taught.
There’s something called the ‘feel’ you get when you watch, right? In that sense, Yuna, you gave off a pretty decent feel.”

“Then do you think that the director wants even more than this?”

Yuna had a look at Jayeon, who was sitting in front of the monitor.
Were her expectations too high? Or was she not giving an okay sign because she was lacking when compared to the people that went before her? The problem ultimately came down to the fact that something was wrong with herself.
What excuse could she make when she was an actor who couldn’t satisfy the producer?

Just as she was in deep thought, Jayeon called out to her.

“Have a look at this.”

She looked at the screen that Jayeon was pointing at.
The scene they just shot was being played.
The noise that could be heard before the cue sign fell disappeared as soon as it fell.
She momentarily gasped at the fact that she was being shot from three angles before she started frowning.
Her acting on the screen was terrible.
Her eyes were wavering everywhere, and her actions were clumsy.
Her pronunciations were okay, but her breathing was unstable from time to time.
The problems she wasn’t aware of were plain to see in the video.

“Is that how I did?”

“Yuna.”

“Yes?”

“Are you perhaps afraid of the camera?”

“No, that’s not the case.”

“If your level of skill was just this, I wouldn’t have picked you in the first place.
When I watched you act just now, I could tell from this distance that you were pretty decent.
But why were you like that inside the set? I thought that you were nervous and tried to encourage you as much as possible, but from the way things are looking right now, I don’t think it’s nervousness that’s the problem.”

Yuna had a look at the screen again.
She felt like she was watching someone else’s acting.
Not only that, they seemed like a beginner.
She felt her hairs standing on end.
Just what happened?

“Especially when you take that call.”

Jayeon showed her the part where she picked up her phone.
Her movements became awry the moment the phone started ringing.
It was to the point that her acting before the call looked good in comparison.
When she took the call, her pronunciation was mangled.
She felt like the line of emotions that she was barely holding onto was blown away.
It was such a strange thing.
She thought that she did quite decently when she acted inside the set, but from the video, her act was beyond saving.

“At times like this,”

Just then, she heard a voice behind her.
Ganghwan, who was watching the screen with sharp eyes, pushed Maru forward.

“We should try using this guy.”

“Me?” Maru retorted.

Yuna didn’t understand what was going on.
Use Maru? Use him where? Ganghwan and Jayeon exchanged words in a small voice.

“Should we go then?”

Jayeon’s eyes were filled with vitality.
It seemed that she had found a good method.
Yuna wanted to ask what was going on, but before she could ask, she was pushed from behind into the set.
Following her, the camera director came in after taking the camera from the first cameraman.

“You don’t look good.
Get an earful?”

“No, it wasn’t like that.”

“Then why do you look so dejected?”

“I just realized that my acting skills are terribly lacking.
I saw my own figure through a screen, and I looked really bad.”

“Don’t blame yourself too much.
Everyone starts learning like that.”

As thankful as she felt, those words sounded too bitter for her right now.
She calmed down as she looked at the camera director’s gentle smile.
There was no way producer Jayeon pushed her in without thinking like this.
Her eyes looked like she had found a method.
Yuna looked outside the door which was still open.
Ganghwan and Maru were having a conversation.
She wondered what it was about until she met Maru’s eyes.
Maru waved his hand as though to tell her not to worry.

“Well, then.
We’re starting now.
Standby!”

The assistant director’s voice hit her ears.
Yuna closed her eyes and tried to fish out her confidence that had sunk deep inside the lake in her heart, but the only thing that was fished out was unease.

“Ready!”

Yuna opened her eyes.
Get yourself together – that was the only thing she could tell herself right now.

[1] Presumably from the series ‘Candy Candy’