CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Helpless Counter

“Soonyoung?” That was the very first thing he heard once the sun rises, casting light through the gap between his curtains. Pushing his body off slowly is indeed groggy Kwon Soonyoung and finds a better visual of Kwon Shinyoung by his bedroom door. Once he rubs his eyes to clear his vision, he asks, “Are you feeling better? You passed out on the couch last night.”

“I know,” Shinyoung stated as matter-of-factly before continuing, “I woke up like at one and saw that you made porridge.” Soonyoung shakes his head. His system is barely functioning nevertheless he feels like the news needs to be delivered anyway.

“Not me. It was Myungho. He came by to make it for you. Is it okay?”

“Very. If I would’ve known, I would probably ask him to make it sooner. I should thank him later if that’s the case then.” She is about to leave his bedroom but Soonyoung calls her name causing her to return her attention on him. On his face is a worry expression. A very typical one to see on her downtimes yet there is slight difference to it today. He looks rather upset?

“You have spring allergy that I don’t know of? Is that why you always get stuffy every season?” He felt bad, honestly though he should not be. He senses that it should be among his list concern to know about her. Being the one living with her for almost three years, he feels even worse for not acknowledging it.The fact it is Wonwoo who exposed the information probably causes more unnecessary guilt.

“Yeah, I am. But it usually goes away pretty quickly. For whatever reason, it is twice as bad this time around. But don’t worry about it too much. I’m feeling great so I’ll be heading to SIA now.” She answered, giving a friendly wave and then he finally noticing her casual outfit which he checks his phone for the current time.

It is ten minutes passed ten in the morning and he has a class at eleven.

Entering the faculty’s Sewing Room, Shinyoung claims a vacant sewing machine and beams when she catches Mingyu keenly colouring something she assumes to be his costume design the class assignment. When he senses the girl beside him eyeing closely on current activity, he tears his attention to transfer it on her.

“How are you doing today, Miss Kwon?” Mingyu smiles good-naturedly. He is glancing at his sketchbook before putting away his colour pencils back to its case. Then he closes the book. As they exchange simple conversations like the assignments and RQS projects alike, little numbers of students begin to fill in the entire room. Honestly, there are not a lot of them to start with. There are only sixteen of them.

“Anyway, it’s good to see you back.” The boy voiced which makes the girl rolls her eyes playfully. “You talked as if I left.”

“It’s not often to see you get sick for a long time. Usually you get better within a day.”

“And you noticed that?”

Yes, Mingyu noticed that. Shinyoung might actually have a strong team of white blood cells to fight its enemies on the inside, he assumes. Either that or she is lucky enough to be blessed with health except during the initial spring making its mark. He would usually sweep it away but he learned new things from Minghao last night when he barged in the other’s apartment in the middle of the night.

“Will you be going to tonight’s practice session? Soonyoung and Jihoon already start with the musical side of the play. I heard it went well or something. Myungho said it is fun while it last.” The boy mentioned whilst twirling a 2B pencil between his slender fingers. She wonders where it came from when he had fixed his attention on her all this time.

“I don’t have a reason to come by at these early stages of practices. Or really, the entire Artistic team minus the Audio team. Speaking of them, I haven’t met with Vernon yet to ask if he managed to get the mics and all.” Shinyoung laces her hair with her fingers and tired by simply thinking about it.

“And I thought it’s still early to think about the Artistic side of the play.” Mingyu uttered. “Well, it’s better to prepare early. I’ll probably have to meet up with Sungjae personally within the next couple of weeks to talk more about it.”

“Why not now?”

“Sungjae is working at the Blue Box Entertainment now, remember? Seungcheol is lucky enough to drag him into the production.”

They would want to converse more. This kind of free time in between classes are rare to come by with most of the students in the room have their own set of outside task to tackle. Shinyoung and Mingyu are not the only ones that are desperate to fill their portfolio with individual achievements after all. So they instantly focus on the day’s lecture on interpreting text in hand to produce a quality costume design out of it.

He honestly does not know why on Earth he is running again. To think that two months and a half of the third year of university life translates well into his dictionary. Though truly, he knows the reason behind his tardiness this time around and a part of him is glad he is late to a practice session. It is definitely not his morning class.

“Warm up and head straight to practice, Myungho.” Junhui instructed him that instant to a point Minghao barely has a room to breathe. Just as told, he goes on and does his stretching routine. Glancing around the confined studio, the Chinese boy counts the heads appear within his line of sight, wanting to know who came to the night practice session. He figures he is good to cut some set seeing that he has been running from the campus after he ended a class.

The lead actor almost forgot his new schedule as he only managed to swift by the pasted box of time at the front of the meeting room on the day before. By the time he wants the floor to open up and swallow his tired being, the Playwright pops into the room in the similar fashion. The only difference is that he immediately sits by the Director’s side instead of warming up.

“I’m glad to see most of you manage to squeeze through the new schedule.” Seungcheol begins the day’s talk with a positive vibe and claps his hands. “The show is in a month and based on the timetable Junhui gave, all of you don’t have plenty of final papers to study. I’m not surprised since the faculty always prefer to evaluate the students physically instead of writing.”

“So I guess all of you will be free by the end of spring. That being said, I just want to give you a heads up that we’ll have intense practice session until the show day. Any objection?” The Stage Manager shoots his gaze off the file in his hand to see no hands in the air and much to his ease, all of them are not on air.

“You guys are the best team I ever seen.” Seungcheol straightforwardly mentioned which causes a couple set of laughter erupt from the cast in front of him. “You’re fine with the production stealing your summer vacation?” He decided to throw the question.

“I’m not fine but really all I’ll probably do in Jeju is slacking off and catching up with some sleep. Besides, it’s not like you’ll steal the entire summer anyway.” Boo Seungkwan shrugs as he replied which lengthens the laughing session they are having for a good minute. After the laughter dies down, the whole team turns their attention towards the door where their Production Manager is seemingly trying to steady his breathing.

“Hate to disturb your fun but can I meet you now, Cheol?” Sungjae gestures the fellow to meet up what he assumes to be out of the toasty practice studio. His eyes are wavering. Panic is written all over his face and movements. Though it is clear to read but the mind appears to be blocked off to a point not even Minghao can skim them.

“Well, Jun, you keep an eye on them while I gone. It’ll be a while. The rest of you can practice on your own for the time being. Wonwoo, you’re coming with me.” With that said, the Director disappears which makes the Stage Manager questioning whatever reason Sungjae chooses to drag the two out of the room.

The three of them easily sit down, easing their way to a quick meeting. The Production Manager slams a thin file on the table. The cover is thin and translucent yet it is difficult to trace what is in before Sungjae flips it. He goes through multiple papers and he stops, sliding a what-it-seems to be some sort of invitation card.

“Do any of you have any idea what is this and where it comes from?” There is no verbal reply produced from the two friends as the one who is currently standing holding on the edge of the table hopes for any of them to say something, anything.

“I don’t remember sending invitations to our alumni.” Seungcheol finally voiced in concern. The intricate detail printed on the navy blue glossy paper resembles the ones on the play’s poster which had been pasted on plenty of the Seoul Institute of Arts university boards. However, there is zero invitation being sent. “Does Yanan know about it? Maybe he did-”

“No, I asked him before I came here. He too have no idea how our seniors got their hands on these. We never plan on inviting them this way. Also it is strange that all answered invitations are from our former Directors.” Sungjae informed whilst slipping more of the evidence for Seungcheol and Wonwoo to see. Surely enough, the names are very recognisable.

Seo Eunkwang, Lee Changsub, Lim Hyunsik – the first generation Directors.

Jo Jinho, Kim Seokjin, Kim Namjoon, Jung Ilhoon – the second generation Directors.

This is the strangest occurrence that ever happened to them after Ilhoon announced his leave for the real world. None of them stayed like Hyunsik did. Meaning when Seungcheol took over, he is alone, save for Wonwoo and Shinyoung who are still head strong in the production since the mid-second generation. Not those troubles ever arise in the past but it is usually handled well by his team of admins. And he hopes for the same result this time as well.

“So, it is just them? No other people involved?” Wonwoo who was quiet for minutes asked, eyeing closely on the card. He wishes for something to pop up just by glancing hard on them but obviously nothing shows up. “Yes, so far that’s it. Though that being said, I did actually get a call from Hyunsik.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said thanks for the invitation and the whole gang will probably come by. They’re planning to check us during the full dress rehearsal which I don’t think Junhui, Yanan and I have fully discussed.”

Shoot, Seungcheol pondered deeply. Sungjae is right. Now that he mentioned that, he realises how near the show days. Since they will be performing three nights, Saturday being the finale, when will the rehearsal even take place?

By the time the next day rolls in, our beloved Production Manager has his eyes fixed on the blinking computer screen in his confined office cubicle. Stuck on his head was a pair of headphones, hoping people gets the sign to leave him alone yet it is already a bad idea when he had the device connected with his phone. Hence, the buzzing notification disturbing his flow of music.

“Yook Sungjae speaking.” The fellow answered the call without leaving any intentional delay. He did not even bother looking at the caller ID to check since the name is displayed. “Hey, are you busy this lunch?”

Sungjae’s brows furrow at the question upon acknowledging the other’s identity. As he lightly tapping on his desk, he tries to recall his schedule for the day before replying with a short ‘yes’. He can use a good company this afternoon but seeing the caller means something huge is coming through. He supposed informing Yanan about the matter will be handy. The younger Chinese male shall also join in the lunch meeting.

Fortunately, the Event Manager does not question much and another fortunate aspect of this meeting is the fact the boy does have his late afternoon free aside from confirming a couple of things for RQS play to smoothly run until the end.

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