159. Minseo's Side Story
Minseo was a quiet student.
Perhaps it was because he had to transfer schools when he was young. As a child in Ansan, he was a lively kid.
“You only need to take the subway for four stops. We’re moving next month, son. Can you commute by subway until then?”
His parents were thrilled about the new apartnt they were lucky enough to get.
However, Minseo, who was in his first year of middle school, couldn't share in their happiness. His parents had decided it was better to transfer schools at the beginning of the second sester rather than in the middle.
It wasn’t about whether to transfer; it was about when to transfer.
- Clatter, clatter, clatter.
He rode the subway for the first ti. When he went to say goodbye to his teacher a few days ago, his parents drove him.
But they couldn't help him commute every day, so Minseo had to ride the unfamiliar subway alone.
It was rush hour. The subway was packed, but everything was fascinating to Minseo. He held onto a smooth pole and looked around. He now had stories to tell his neighborhood friends, who promised to keep in touch even after he moved.
He got off the subway. It was only four stops, but it felt like a completely different world from where he used to live. The sophisticated city accepted his curious gaze with nonchalance.
He took the bus for another ten minutes.
There were students in different school uniforms on the bus. Minseo straightened his stiff uniform. It still felt awkward.
He finally arrived at the new middle school. Since he had left early, he wasn’t late and still had plenty of ti.
Not knowing where to go, Minseo headed to the teachers’ office. After a short wait, his new teacher greeted him with a casual “Oh, you’re here.” Thus began the nervous new sester for the 14-year-old middle schooler.
*
“Eat quickly and go. You’ll be late.”
“...Okay.”
They had moved. The new apartnt was close to the school, only five minutes to the classroom from the front door.
But Minseo hesitated to set out on even this short commute.
There were no friends at school.
It wasn’t the fault of the teacher who casually introduced the late transfer student, nor the classmates who were already close after the first sester, nor was it Minseo’s fault.
If Minseo had a fault, it was that he didn't watch TV and thus didn’t know any of the celebrities his classmates talked about. If his classmates had a fault, it was that they already knew everything about each other, including which kindergarten everyone attended. If the teacher had a fault, it was that he placed Minseo at the farthest, empty seat without a partner.
How did I make friends in my old neighborhood?
Minseo couldn’t rember. They were just always friends.
They played in the playground of the apartnt complex, caught bugs, occasionally played with fire, and explored the abandoned railroad tracks.
It wasn’t like that here. Even though it was just a few subway stops away, the way kids played was completely different.
Or maybe it was similar. It’s just that now that they were in middle school, they stopped exploring undeveloped mountains and fields and started going to PC rooms and karaoke.
While Minseo commuted far by subway, they took a few more steps ahead.
Minseo made his first real friend in high school. Though they lived in the sa neighborhood, they had attended different middle schools. This mix was a good opportunity for Minseo.
Still, making friends wasn’t easy.
His family rarely watched TV. The only ti the TV was on was when his father watched the news. For Minseo’s family, the TV was just a decoration.
Because of this, he still found it hard to talk to his friends, but he didn’t try hard to learn the nas of celebrities either.
He wasn’t interested. Celebrities were just strangers. Their private lives, their words, and their aningless jokes didn’t interest him. It hurt his pride to learn all that just to make friends.
He quietly read books, mocking yet envying his peers who cheered for such aningless gossip.
His potentially vibrant school years faded like the musty books in the library.
Still, perhaps thanks to all the reading, his grades weren’t bad. After one retake, Minseo went to college.
He didn’t have a passion for learning anything in particular. He just entered a major that matched his grades and started college life.
“This is boring.”
The idea that everything would be resolved in college was a lie.
Nothing was resolved. Professors negated all the knowledge he had studied throughout his life, and assignnts piled up every class. Group projects demanded extre patience and gave him a new perspective on human relationships.
After graduation, he would have to start a busy and harsh professional life, where even this dull college life would feel like paradise.
Minseo continued his dull but busy college life. Still, he was young. Despite pretending to be indifferent and lofty, there was a seething youth inside him.
After his first-sester midterms, he stumbled upon a theater club poster on his way back.
GPA, TOEIC/TOEFL scores, internships available from freshman year, volunteer activities to prove good character, national certifications to avoid being considered unqualified, and part-ti job experiences to spice up his life...
There was much to take care of, but Minseo joined the club dubbed as a “gathering of idlers who don’t think about studying and only drink in college.” And it wasn’t just any club, but a theater club that wouldn’t help with his career at all.
There, he t Chaeha.
Though they were the sa age, she was a year ahead of him. She had wavy black hair, didn’t cover her mouth when she laughed, and did a little dance while saying “Chicken, chicken, it’s chicken!” in front of fried chicken.
Maybe it was that sight that won him over.
That was just a crush. Minseo thought there was a different reason why he truly liked her.
Chaeha, who loved theater, often practiced monologues alone in the rehearsal room.
In a play, an aside is when a character speaks their thoughts out loud to the audience, with the understanding that the other characters cannot hear them. Whenever soone would interject with, "What are you mumbling to yourself?" Minseo would frown in annoyance.
However, when soone would pick up the following line while she was practicing, she would smile brightly. That was probably what made fall for her.
Chaeha, who was studying in a corner of the stage, claiming she needed to win a scholarship, would suddenly recite a line from a play:
“Won have many secrets. So do I. It’s because we want to seem a bit mysterious to you.”
One day, Minseo responded with:
“n wait. For the mont you unveil yourself. Don’t think I’ll be disappointed. I’ll be as happy as when you first accepted .”
“Huh? That line’s different.”
“I just… changed it up a bit.”
“Really? But if the male lead says that, what happens to the plot?”
“Well…? Maybe it leads to a happy ending? Look, in the original, misunderstandings pile up, and they don’t end up together. But if he says this, the female lead might not throw away the letter. And if the male lead reads it, he might abandon his trip. Then…”
In the quiet rehearsal room, the sound of a pen scratching echoed. Chaeha burst out laughing, “What is this? It’s not fun at all. What about all the hints laid out until now?” She ridiculed Minseo’s hastily written scenario. Yet, from this point on, they grew rapidly closer.
Before the sumr vacation, Minseo confessed to Chaeha in an empty rehearsal room. This ti, Chaeha laughed silently, not hiding her broad smile.
Thus began their tender romance.
They went on a quick trip with the money they saved from their part-ti jobs before the sester started. They spent the brain-breaking midterms and finals together in the rehearsal room.
During the winter vacation, they gained experience in a university theater troupe outside the college. Though they didn’t get on stage, they worked as staff, handling lighting, costus, stage setup, promotion, venue rental, and even stand-in recruitnt… They faced the various challenges of the theater together.
Then ca Minseo’s draft notice.
Minseo enlisted right after finishing the first sester of his sophomore year.
The night before vacating the place they had lived in for over a year, Minseo and Chaeha stayed up all night together. Hugging her, he promised, “I’ll wait for you.” And Chaeha kept her promise.
When Minseo returned after his discharge, Chaeha was in her fourth year, on the brink of graduation. She had taken a year off to learn acting and was striving to beco an actress.
However, theater acting did not pay well. A yearly salary of 700,000 won. Managing stage costus as a costu design graduate could earn her a few more tens of thousands of won each month, but both Chaeha and Minseo knew it made little difference.
Encouragent and advice in a future-bound relationship had to be realistic. Minseo suggested that keeping theater as a hobby might be better. Frustrated, repetitive conversations wore them both down until one day, Minseo lashed out at Chaeha.
It was around the ti he, a fourth-year student, started facing serious job search pressures. His words were not as refined as a line from a play.
“Why are you like this? Don’t you think about making a living? How can you live doing only what you like? As a theater actress, you can’t even make enough for monthly rent, let alone a deposit.”
“Then are you telling to live doing sothing I hate for the rest of my life? I can’t do that. Honestly, you don’t want to be a civil servant either! You said you wanted to work in the theater. You said you wanted to be a playwright!”
A playwright.
It’s a joke. Even if Shakespeare were reborn in this era, he’d starve. Unless he beca a great film director.
Realizing how much they had changed, the two agreed not to discuss this issue any further.
Minseo continued studying to beco a civil servant. Chaeha continued to strive to get on stage, occasionally laughing about how much they were suffering.
Then Chaeha broke down.
Her father passed away from a sudden stroke, and she blad herself for not being able to contribute to the hospital expenses. She couldn’t focus on acting and spent her days in depression.
Around that ti, Minseo was also slowly falling apart. The 7th-grade civil servant exam. It wasn’t even the 5th grade, and yet it was so difficult. Despairing, he shut himself in their room.
We couldn’t be each other’s support. No, especially I couldn’t be her support.
Despite this, Chaeha tried to move forward, overcoming her sorrow. But her boyfriend, whining that the world had ended, chipped away at her determination. The more resolve he stole, the less he studied.
Then one day, Chaeha spoke. With hair tied back and in a neat semi-formal suit.
- “Let’s spend so ti apart.”
- “I’m saying this for us. I’ll achieve sothing too. Let’s work hard.”
Twisted as I was, I spat out words that ca from nowhere.
“Oh, so you’re going to do what you didn’t want to do, get a job after all.”
Chaeha neither cried nor cursed her pathetic boyfriend.
“I believe in you,” she said and left.
*
Minseo, no, Leo, stared blankly at the woman before him.
Flowing black hair and black eyes. Though narrow, her shoulders were straight, her petite fra, and…
The spotlight shining down on the stage.
She was not Chaeha. Sharp mories turned into delusions, cutting through Minseo’s mind.
I must return.
Escape from this hell, sohow, sohow to Chaeha.
Minseo grasped the mind of Leo de Yeriel.
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