In This Life, The Greatest Star In The Universe

Translator: MarcTempest

Editor: Rxel

Chapter 86

There were some people who made you wonder what they were thinking as they lived their lives.

Their group had four of them.

Except for Woojoo, they all had some weird points in one aspect or another.

Of course, there was one who was undoubtedly the most outstanding among them, but their youngest was also a remarkable owner of a peculiar personality.

He had a tendency to say things like ‘Look at that, look at that, oh my goodness’ 99 percent of the time, except for the occasional 1 percent of moments when he was amazing.

He was the most incomprehensible to Woojoo, but now he could clearly see what he was thinking.

“Acting?” Woojoo asked with a smile, “Why acting all of a sudden?”

“No, I’m just curious. I also remembered how we got scammed by Hyung last year. You said you took a break from singing for two years then, but you did well.”

“I don’t sing better than him.”

“You didn’t ask him.”

Rihyuk, who had briefly interrupted, twisted his lips and turned his eyes to ‘First Steps in Japanese’.

He glanced at him before that.

His eyes said, ‘You know you have to answer well, right?’

“Anyway, I just asked because I was curious. You might be good at acting too, and I might end up praising you too much…”

Woojoo felt like he could see it.

A young child who was holding a candy in his hand and worrying that someone might snatch it away.

In fact, their youngest was not very prominent in areas such as singing, dancing, rap, or composing.

And he was conscious of that fact.

He tried to hide it, but it was obvious to the people who watched him from the side.

At the year-end evaluation, when everyone had a role to play, he also wanted to help somehow and made up a role for himself.

Of course, that role was the cute one of being in charge of snacks, but no one laughed at that.

That was how much he wanted to help.

And apart from doing his part in the group, acting was the only advantage that Jiho had to show off to his brothers.

Was he originally an aspiring actor?

Woojoo heard he came here to be an actor, but ended up becoming an idol.

But he didn’t give up on his dream of being an actor.

Even now, when it was time for personal lessons, he went to take acting lessons while everyone else went to learn rap or composing.

Woojoo didn’t know how much acting meant to Jiho, but what he saw inside him was not light.

“Well. I’ve never learned acting.”

“Huh? Why?” Jiho asked with surprise, “You know, those big agencies like TJ, they have a lot of potential beef ribs? That.”

“Beef leaves. You idiot.”

The youngest turned his head sharply, and Rihyuk chuckled and lifted his book.

Jiho coughed and said, “They say they give acting lessons to the good-looking ones.”

“Hmm, that’s probably for the actors who have a wide pool of MOP. TJ has a different system for that.”

There were four major agencies, each with their own characteristics.

SNH valued character, KM valued hip-hop and relevance, MOP valued visuals, and TJ valued performance.

TJ was a performance fanatic as a company.

They didn’t care about visuals or anything else. If someone’s dancing skills didn’t match the group’s overall level, they would kick them out of the debut team, even if they were good dancers.

That was why there was a rumor among the trainees that Woojoo got into TNT’s debut team by corruption.

“They invest a lot in the trainees for choreography and singing, so they don’t give separate acting lessons. Well, unless you’re an aspiring actor.”

The conclusion was simple.

“I don’t know, I’ve never learned acting.”

“Really?”

“How long have you learned?”

Jiho counted his fingers and said, “I’ve been learning at an academy since middle school… for three years.”

“That’s a long time.”

“If you include the fairy tale acting academy I attended, it’s ten years.”

Rihyuk and Woojoo, who were reading a book, burst into laughter.

Jiho was the only one with a serious face.

“I’m serious…”

“Yeah, I know.” Woojoo said with a smile, “Anyway, I don’t know much about acting either. I’m lacking in many ways. So I need your help too.”

“Just trust me, Hyung.”

“Please take good care of me, senior.”

As they were joking around to lighten the mood, Rihyuk put down his book and asked, “But have you really never learned acting?”

“What?”

“Acting.”

“Yeah.”

…Woojoo answered, but then he remembered something.

“Oh, come to think of it, I did get one lesson when I was at that company.”

“Really?”

“The teacher said something.”

“What did he say?”

Woojoo recalled the past, looking at the curious faces of the two guys.

What did the acting teacher say back then?

He just casually said, “Well, you’re not bad.”

***

After the schedule was over, they received a message from their manager.

“Your CF shooting schedule is set. The location is a boys’ middle school in Yeongdeungpo.”

The location was confirmed.

“We’ll probably shoot it in two days.”

“Two days?”

“You know the ones who became Everdream models with you guys? Blink.”

They nodded.

Blink.

They were rookies with a similar career as us, and they had the best performance reviews among the new girl groups that debuted this year.

“They messed up at the shooting site. It looked like a simple script and a light concept for a CF, so they must have been careless with the preparation. Because of that, they kept making mistakes on the spot.”

Blink had experienced the nightmare that they had only imagined.

“I heard from TJ’s Manager Kim. It was awful. The director was about to curse them out. The advertisers had executives coming over and everyone was frozen. He said he thought he was going to die from the awkwardness.”

Then he begged them to prepare well over the phone.

Woojoo remembered the stiff-faced advertising agency staff that he met for the first time at the photo shoot that day and smirked.

Seokhwan Hyung continued.

“So we changed our plan and decided to prepare more thoroughly, and we’re going to have you all take acting lessons.”

“Lessons?”

“We have someone who works exclusively for our company. He’s an acting teacher and we’re going to invite him for a day. Jiho, you know him, right?”

“Ah, yes.”

Jiho answered the curious faces of the Hyungs.

“He’s been teaching me since I joined the company. He’s very kind and nice. But he’s strict about acting…”

“Anyway, he agreed to take charge of it.” Seokhwan Hyung said earnestly, “It’s a one-time lesson, but I hope you guys prepare well. He said he won’t say anything after teaching you for a day, so it’s a favor.”

“Yes.”

“And…”

His eyes behind the glasses scanned them and stopped at Jiho.

“Especially, Jiho. He said not to be complacent because you’re good, and to prepare harder than the other Hyungs because you learned acting.”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll count on you.”

The manager left and they gathered in one place to discuss.

Jiho was the main axis.

“First of all, we need to divide the roles before we practice together.”

There were five of them, so naturally there were five roles for them to play.

It was a short and simple web drama-style CF, but there were some lines attached even for trivial things.

Transfer student

Class president

Model student

Athlete

Student 5

The weight was similar for everyone.

It felt like they divided it fairly by 20 percent.

It didn’t take long to divide the roles.

After Jiho took the transfer student, who had a slightly tricky scene, they just chose the person who was closest to their usual character.

“No.”

Of course, there was someone who complained.

“Why am I the only one who’s student 5 when everyone else is an athlete or a transfer student?”

***

11 p.m.

At that time, when the younger ones had all returned to the dorm, Woojoo was sitting in the studio and tapping the synthesizer absentmindedly.

“Ants are.”

Ding ding.

“Today too.”

Ding ding.

“Working hard~.”

Ding ding.

A majestic organ sound like the one you heard in a church.

It was worthy of a synthesizer that cost millions of won.

If the management support team leader knew Woojoo was using it like this, he would run over and shake him by the collar.

He slapped his cheek as he hummed the ant song and the dung beetle song in a row.

“Ah, I can’t think of anything…”

What he was worried about was the song work.

Woojoo didn’t know exactly when, but he guessed their second album would be released around October or November.

This time, they might have a contest for the title song among the composers.

The company seemed to want him to include one of his songs in the second album, maybe because of his image as a composer-idol.

So he had to make a song.

“What should I do?”

Woojoo already showed a refreshing summer season song with Fireworks.

And a warm and emotional song with Night Sea.

What should he do now?

Everyone had their own way of composing, but he was the type who needed a clear image to start working.

For example, the fireworks he saw with his parents when he was young, or the night sky he saw lying on his grandmother’s lawn.

“Hmm…”

Woojoo felt like he focused too much on himself, so maybe he should try to make a song about their members.

But that was a problem in itself.

If he thought about the overall color of New Black, he would end up with something not much different from Fireworks.

Then he would have to deal with each member individually.

But he didn’t know much about their musical colors.

And if he made a song based on one of them, he couldn’t predict how the other members would react.

“This is hard.”

The closer Woojoo got to the members, the more he cared about these small things.

Maybe it was a sensitive part emotionally.

They always showed a bit of jealousy when he sang Night Sea as a duet with Rihyuk.

That wasn’t a bad thing.

It was natural for humans.

They wanted to do it too, they wanted to stand on the stage and get attention like that.

That was why he couldn’t say that he was trying to make a song for someone.

It was something he had to think carefully about.

After playing the synthesizer for almost an hour and singing a song without a foundation, he decided to take some time and think more.

Woojoo had other things to do anyway.

He turned off the synthesizer and sat down on the sofa in the studio.

[‘Everdream’ CF – ‘Magic School’ episode]

The advertisement script that he had been looking at in the car was in his hand.

His eyes went to the tenth scene.

#10.

[VIDEO]

The class president approaches the transfer student

[AUDIO]

Class president: Hi, you’re the transfer student, right?

From the part where the character ‘class president’ that he played appeared to the end.

Woojoo looked at that part over and over again and wondered.

What should he do?

Should he just read it?

“Hi, you’re the new student, right?”

Ugh, how embarrassing.

Woojoo felt like his ears would burn if he was Rihyuk.

He read the lines over and over again, along with the other dialogues that followed, but he didn’t feel much better.

Acting was not something anyone could do.

It was a different field from singing and dancing on stage.

Woojoo kept repeating the lines, but they just stuck in his mouth. He didn’t feel like he was doing well.

Maybe he was just mediocre, as TJ had said before.

Well.

On the other hand, it meant he had to use his brain.

Since he was a trainee, he had always used his head to cover up his weaknesses, such as stage direction. It was a habit to look for solutions as soon as a problem arose.

If he had trouble expressing emotions…

He had to make up for it in other ways.

For example, facial expressions or body movements.

With that in mind, he wrote down on an A4 paper what kind of actions would go with each scene.

The next part was easy.

With the ability he had, it wasn’t hard to practice the expressions and movements that suited the scene.

He was in the middle of practicing like that, walking and moving his hands, when it happened.

Clack-

Woojoo turned his head at the sound of the door opening and saw Bijoo.

“Oh, Bijoo.”

“Hyung, I’m here.”

Behind the smiling brother with a slightly tired face, he saw a familiar face.

She was a girl group member with a small stature and a very pale face.

“Hello, Sunbae-nim.”

She narrowed her eyes at Woojoo’s greeting.

“We seem to have gotten closer. Can’t you just talk casually now?”

“I’m more comfortable with this.”

It was Daisy.

The rapper and maknae of Scarlet.

Woojoo asked her why she came with Bijoo.

“Why are you two together?”

“Oh, I ran into Daisy Sunbae-nim on the way up.”

Bijoo carefully peeled off the hair stuck to his forehead with a tissue.

He looked soaked from practicing hard.

“I was going to go to the dorm after practice, but I came up to go with you, Hyung. It’s dangerous at night these days-”

“That’s nice of you. You even worry about me.”

“I thought it would be safer to go with you, Hyung.”

“…”

“Oops.”

Bijoo and Woojoo looked at each other and burst out laughing.

After laughing for a while.

Woojoo gave a glance to the guest who visited the studio.

“What brings you here, Sunbae?”

“I was just working on a mixtape and got bored, so I came to hang out.”

“Don’t you need to rest? You’re busy and you come all the way here…”

“It’s okay, I have a little break time.”

She wasn’t leaving.

She kept looking at the interior of their studio with interest, which made Woojoo uneasy.

The studio they used had a pink sofa and a polka dot cushion.

Then she noticed something on the table.

“What’s this? ‘Wave your hand?’ ‘Use magic?’.”

“That’s the script for the commercial.”

Bijoo gave her a sweet smile and snatched it from her, then handed it to Woojoo.

Unexpected.

If it were Rihyuk or Jiho, they would have asked him, ‘Hyung, can I take it?’ But they were firm with people who weren’t in our group.

“Wow, that’s mean. Oppa. Why is this a secret among the same company people?”

She made a sour face.

“I even did a cameo for you in the music video.”

Woojoo thought their maknae was the only one who was like a sticky rice cake, but there was another fluffy cake here.

Daisy started to whine.

“I brought sushi to the set, and I gave you 100,000 won to buy snacks.”

“100,000 won?”

A memory suddenly came to mind.

She gave him 100,000 won at the beginning of this year, saying that he had worked hard carrying her stuff. But he told his siblings it was only 50,000 won.

Oops.

Before she could say anything, Woojoo quickly interrupted her.

“So, how was your practice?”

“Huh?”

“Weren’t you practicing your dance moves?”

“Oh, yeah. There’s one hand gesture that I can’t get right. Do you want to see it?”

He got up from his seat and moved like a dancer.

It was an elegant gesture, like a magician bowing to the audience and waving their hand after a show.

“Wow.”

“It’s so bad.”

“…”

Then he showed them the same thing again.

“How is it?”

“…I don’t see much difference?”

“Don’t you feel the difference? There’s a difference between being smooth but strong, and being strong but smooth. You understand, right?”

No, not at all.

Woojoo turned his head to Daisy, but she also shook her head.

He kept trying different hand gestures and pondering for a while, then changed the topic.

“Then, were you practicing your acting?”

“Yeah, I was working on some songs too.”

Woojoo also had something that came to his mind thanks to him.

“Oh, by the way, can you take a look at this? You too, Sunbae.”

“What? Acting?”

“Yeah, I’ve been practicing, but it doesn’t seem to work well… It feels awkward.”

They smiled and said it was okay.

“It’s okay. It’s your first time.”

“Yeah, I can’t act either.”

“Hmm, let me show you.”

Woojoo nodded at their encouraging smiles and showed them the first few scenes that he was in, which he had prepared roughly.

He recited his lines while moving his body.

Now, the third scene…

Woojoo stopped.

Because of the two fish on the sofa, who were just blinking their eyes.

“…?”

What kind of reaction was this?

“What’s wrong with you?”