Life, Once Again!

ocal cords! The sound should be focused in front of your body and spread out from there! Don’t swallow it and spit it out.
It’ll be easier for both you and the listeners if you spit it out.
Don’t squeeze it out.”

Ganghwan made scary eyes before putting his hands on Maru’s stomach.

“Looks like you haven’t done your vocal exercises at all.
You took a break because you were shooting dramas, didn’t you? You were too loose because the microphone did the work for you, huh?”

Maru frowned and tensed his stomach.
He thought his voicing wasn’t bad, but it seemed that Ganghwan found it unsatisfactory.

“What good is tensing your stomach like that? What’s the part that supports your diaphragm when it expands and you make a deep sound? It’s your back muscles.
This part is all loose so it’s not going to make a good sound at all.
You too, Sooil.
Relax your shoulders and neck.
Why are you tensing unnecessary muscles? That’s what’s killing the sound.
There’s a clear difference between suppressing your voice and speaking with power, and your voice being suppressed due to lack of strength.”

Ganghwan pressed the tip above the back of Maru’s waist, at the end of where his latissimus dorsi muscle was.
Maru pictured a balloon in his head and focused on the sound.

“That’s it.
That’s much better.
Why didn’t you do that until now? Both of you, cut your breaths!”

Maru cut his breath short.
He felt a little dizzy.
Sooil was also swallowing his breath with difficulty.

“Breathe in and say ga ge gi go gu like you’re spitting it out.”

Maru shot words like a bullet towards the mirror in front of him.
He used one breath for one word.
The first time was easy, but the more he did so, the more that he felt his words were coming from the back of his head.
At such times, he had to start over.
It was simple, but hard to continue doing the same thing.

“What, you started already?”

Hanna’s figure could be seen through the mirror.
Although he had to greet her, he couldn’t stop now.
Ganghwan’s instruction was one thing, but he couldn’t stop first when he looked at Sooil, who hadn’t stopped either.
Although they started lightly, they turned it into a fight of pride that he didn’t want to lose.

“It’s been a long time since I last saw Maru, and I guess you must be Yoo Sooil, right?”

Hanna approached Sooil from the back, who was still voicing out a low tone.
After staring at his neck, which was tense, Hanna suddenly grabbed Sooil’s waist with both of her hands.

Sooil collapsed on the floor with an ‘uhuh’ sound.
Literally ‘uhuh’.

“Your waist is weak.
You look like you’re worth my time tickling.”

Maru looked at Sooil while finishing his breath.

“That’s my win, right?”

“Let’s do it again.
I can’t acknowledge that.”

His competitive spirit seemed to have been fired up again as he got into position again, but Maru didn’t face him.
If he did that one more time, he might fall due to anemia.

“It’s been a long time, noona.”

He greeted her as he sat down.
Hanna smiled as she waved her hand.

“I heard you guys haven’t eaten yet, so here are some lunchboxes.”

“Hanna, what about me?” Ganghwan asked as he raised his hand.

“I have yours as well, so don’t look at me like a little child would.
In a couple of years, you’ll be in the latter half of your thirties.”

“My heart will always be a Peter Pan.”

“Bullshit.”

Hanna smiled as she handed the food out.

* * *

“But is it a play that people like us can butt into?” Maru asked as he put down the empty lunch box.

The four of them would suffice if it was a small-scale play, but the problem was that two out of the four were high school students.

Stages didn’t come for free.
Unless it was a theater owned by the theater troupe, rental fees would occur.
Taking into account the money required to practice, a play had to produce a profit.
Of course, they could attract an audience with just the name ‘Yang Ganghwan’, but that didn’t explain why they decided to bring 2 high school students in.

There was a clear difference in the target audience between movies and plays.
Almost no one would specifically find and watch a play because of one unknown high school student actor and a slightly-known high school student actor.

“Of course, it won’t work for a normal play.”

“Then?”

“We’re going to turn it into a play where the audience participates.
The target audience is middle to high school students like you.”

“A play where the audience participates?”

Ganghwan nodded once.

“Maru, remember what you did with me last winter?”

Last winter? Oh, was he referring to that?

“The amateur acting class?”

“Yes, that.
It’s in collaboration with that and we’re holding a free play as a project to tell more of the public about plays.
But the funds really aren’t looking good.”

Maru understood the gist of it when he heard that the funding wasn’t good.

“That doesn’t mean that we can just use anyone, so we switched strategies like that.
That allows us to decrease the number of actors and increase the participation of the audience, making them interested, if possible.
These days, young kids use mini homepages or something like that, don’t they? Rather than targeting adults, we thought that targeting kids who are proficient with the internet might help promote us in the long term.”

“That sounds nice.
There’s less pressure for the audience since the actors are not that much older than them, if at all.
So we’re being used to catch their attention?”

“That’s one of your roles.
First, we’ll complete the play, and try acting it out a couple of times in Marronnier Park.
Once we have decided on a set format, we’ll move over to the stage as well.”

“Oh, sounds fun.”

Sooil smiled as he spoke.

“What about the script?” Maru asked Ganghwan again.

“Tomorrow.
Today, I just gathered you here to get to know each other.
Maru may know Hanna, but Sooil doesn’t.
We’ll have to get closer to each other if we’re going to stand on stage.
Speaking of that….”

Ganghwan crawled to the fridge before taking out four cans of beer.

“Let’s have a drink.”