Chapter 96: Faces That Tell Stories

“Everyone else is inside too.”

Looking past Kwak Jun-sung as he said that, into the large window, I saw a variety of animal plushies – larger dogs, cats, chicks, wolves, tigers, and others.

“What animal are you, hyung?”

At Lee Woo-rim’s question, instead of answering, Kwak Jun-sung stepped aside.

Immediately visible on the glass door was the writing ‘Jun-sung Animal Hospital’ along with a crooked drawing of an animal head, presumably a tiger.

“You didn’t draw that, did you, hyung?”

At Lee Woo-rim’s question, Kwak Jun-sung pulled a white board marker from his gown pocket.

That meant yes.

“Hyung, isn’t that a bit too badly drawn?”

“You try it.

It’s not as easy as it looks?”

Lee Woo-rim took the marker from Kwak Jun-sung and walked to the glass door with a confident stride.

Soon came the click of the marker cap opening.

“…Uh-oh?”

“See?

I told you it’s not easy.”

Kwak Jun-sung looked at the unidentifiable animal drawing Lee Woo-rim had produced and shook his head.

Lee Woo-rim tried a few more times, saying he’d try again, then finally put down the marker with a sulky face.

As if he had already gone through this himself, Kwak Jun-sung pulled out a wet wipe and wiped the doodle off the glass.

“Jae-seo hyung, are you good at drawing?”

Instead of answering, I pointed to my handwriting on the sign attached to the cafe building across the street.

Lee Woo-rim seemed to understand and nodded immediately, letting out a long sigh.

“Give me that.”

I turned at the sudden voice from behind.

Park Seo-hu was standing there, holding his hand out toward Lee Woo-rim.

When Woo-rim handed over the marker, Park Seo-hu approached the door of ‘Jun-sung Animal Hospital’ with a serious face, flexing his hand.

He erased Kwak Jun-sung’s tiger-ish drawing with a firm hand, then immediately raised the marker.

“Wow!”

As lines drawn without hesitation came together, a decent tiger face appeared.

At Lee Woo-rim’s exclamation, Park Seo-hu’s shoulders seemed to rise slightly.

“Oh, Park Seo-hu, you draw well?”

“Right!

Now it actually looks like a tiger!”

As the two admired Park Seo-hu’s tiger, one of the staff members preparing for the shoot came over to look at the drawing, then gave a thumbs up, saying it was great.

“It’s nothing special…”

Park Seo-hu trailed off and closed his lips, but his shoulders seemed to give a subtle, proud lift.

“We’ll start shooting!”

Individual cut shoots began before we had finished exploring the set.

We agreed to monitor the members’ individual shoots while also seeing the rest of the set.

A video team staff member approached, as if sensing this, and started capturing our huddled group on camera.

“No, isn’t Ji-heon hyung so cute?”

The first up was Yoon Ji-heon.

Sitting at an office desk inside the white building at the very back of the set, which had no sign, Yoon Ji-heon was dressed in a perfect suit and tapping on a toy laptop.

“Look how serious Ji-heon hyung’s expression is.”

As Kwak Jun-sung giggled, saying he was a pro after all, suddenly a flash burst along with the click of a shutter from behind him.

“…Sorry.”

I turned around.

Lee Chan-seo, now in chef’s attire, apparently having just finished getting ready, stood with his phone raised high and a stiff expression.

Having witnessed Yoon Ji-heon’s shoot, he had gotten so excited that he hadn’t even thought to turn off the flash and had immediately pressed the shutter button.

“Ugh, here he goes again.”

Lee Woo-rim, who hadn’t even turned around as if he already knew it was Lee Chan-seo’s doing, shook his head with a fed-up expression.

Actually, after finding out that Lee Chan-seo had long been a fan of Yoon Ji-heon, Woo-rim and I had teamed up to tease him for a while.

We would deliberately drop comments in front of Yoon Ji-heon like “Hyung, Chan-seo is…” But that had been very brief.

“It’s been how long since we started living together, and he’s still like that?”

Even three weeks into dorm life, Lee Chan-seo still acted shy in front of Yoon Ji-heon and stole glances from behind.

Now even Lee Woo-rim was sick of it, let alone teasing him.

“Um… Chan-seo, want to switch spots?”

I gestured with my chin to the prime monitoring spot the four of us had claimed.

Lee Chan-seo hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

Taking the spot where I had been standing, Lee Chan-seo fixed his bright, sparkling eyes on Yoon Ji-heon on the screen.

“Check the time.”

Yoon Ji-heon, who had been pretending to work on the toy laptop, raised his arm at the director’s instruction and looked at his wristwatch, which gave off a luxurious gleam.

Aside from the toy laptop in front of him, it was a very convincing scene that could have been a cut from a drama or movie.

“Even though this is just the first scene, I’m kind of looking forward to the finished MV.”

I strangely agreed with Park Seo-hu’s muttered comment.

I became very curious about how those scenes – which seemed cool and yet laughable at the same time – would be edited and completed.

“Okay!”

Soon after Yoon Ji-heon’s shoot ended, Kwak Jun-sung was called into the animal hospital building.

Placing a tiger plushie with the same name as him on a table that looked like an operating table, Kwak Jun-sung began pretending to examine it with a serious face.

“Pfft… Hoo… BWAHAHA!”

The moment Kwak Jun-sung on the monitor put the stethoscope earpieces in his ears with a grave expression, Lee Woo-rim burst out laughing, having barely held it in.

Kwak Jun-sung flinched briefly, apparently hearing the loud laughter, then continued his serious acting.

“I’m losing my mind, AHAHA!”

Lee Woo-rim’s laughter didn’t stop there.

It continued when Lee Chan-seo chopped toy vegetables with a toy knife, when Park Seo-hu pretended to play a fake piano, and when I pretended to pull coffee shots with a toy machine – but the moment my next shoot was about to start, it cut off abruptly and disappeared.

“I thought that car looked really funny until just now…”

The moment Yeo Hyun-tae, dressed in a police uniform, opened the door of the fake police car and climbed in, Lee Woo-rim muttered about why that looked so convincing, blinking his eyes repeatedly.

If he hadn’t had makeup on, he looked like he would have immediately raised his fist and rubbed his eyes vigorously.

“They say his face tells a story.”

The way Yeo Hyun-tae grabbed and turned the steering wheel of the fake, non-moving car felt so convincing that I unconsciously nodded in agreement with Kwak Jun-sung’s words.

“Right, it suits him well.”

We were all staring blankly at the monitoring screen when suddenly a voice tinged with laughter came from behind.

The moment I turned my head toward the sound, Park Seo-hu, standing next to me, muttered in a small voice, “Ah, damn, annoying.”

His sincerity was similar to when he had said he was annoyed at me on the day of the second Please Take Care of My Idol competition, the ‘Letter’ stage, but even deeper.

“Wow, you look great too, hyung!”

Seo Jun-jae, who appeared in a pilot uniform, answered Lee Woo-rim’s “Thanks,” but his gaze immediately turned to me.

He was probably reacting because he had seen me nod at Kwak Jun-sung’s compliment of Yeo Hyun-tae just now.

“…Right, it suits you well.”

I reluctantly, but unavoidably, offered the compliment mixed with sincerity.

At the same time, Seo Jun-jae’s eyes curved down brightly.

I couldn’t help but sincerely acknowledge Kwak Jun-sung’s words about a face telling a story once again.

…And today, I sincerely hoped I wouldn’t be grouped with those two in the same unit.

***

After the individual shoots, a group shoot with the street as background immediately began.

To be precise, the scene had the rest of the members standing in the street and looking up at the sky at a signal from the director.

With the explanation that a plane would be added later via CG, we followed the laser light the staff shot into the sky.

Because all eight of us had to turn our heads at the same time, we had to repeat the same shot several times before moving on.

“Let’s shoot the group dance scene.”

Once Seo Jun-jae, who had been waiting outside the set, came in, the formation for ‘Awake’ was arranged.

Then we all moved our bodies to the song that began to play.

After dancing the choreography from the second verse to the ending and monitoring it a few times, the shoot on that set ended.

“Next, we’ll shoot Jun-jae’s individual cut.”

While Seo Jun-jae did his individual shoot, the rest of us needed to change clothes, so we headed to the waiting room.

Because my hair had been tightly pulled by the pins holding my hat while dancing, my scalp was throbbing there.

I let out a sigh mixed with a groan and started fiddling with my hat.

Yeo Hyun-tae, who had been standing next to me, immediately stopped me.

“Jae-seo, wait a minute.

I’ll take them out now.”

After a moment’s hesitation, I lowered my head toward Yeo Hyun-tae.

Of course, I could have just gone to the waiting room and asked the hair staff to remove them.

But with my head hurting quite a bit, I didn’t want to wait for a sequence that might get delayed.

When I offered my head, careful fingers approached and began feeling around the hat’s rim.

Soon, freedom returned to my scalp.

“All done.”

Yeo Hyun-tae handed me the hat along with the pins that had been in my hair.

I reflexively touched my relieved head and was about to lift it to thank him when –

“Hyun-tae hyung, are you arresting Jae-seo hyung?”

Along with the click of a photo being taken, Lee Woo-rim’s laughing voice came.

I looked up.

Lee Woo-rim, apparently having stopped by the bathroom and now heading to the waiting room, came into view behind us with his familiar grinning face.

…Me standing with my head bowed low in front of Yeo Hyun-tae in his police uniform must have looked similar to an arrest.

Lee Woo-rim quickly passed by me and Yeo Hyun-tae and entered the waiting room ahead of us.

Soon, through the open door, a loud voice rang out clearly.

“Detective Yeo has caught the criminal!”

Does this game’s protagonist have some kind of embarrassment written in their fate?

I thought idly to myself as I shuffled toward the source of the noise.

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