CHAPTER FOUR

Square One

A ball of paper scores Shinyoung a three-pointer followed by an exaggerated sigh. Her head aches to a point of no return as her brain attempts to find a solution to her trouble. She thought a trip to the bookstore, buying a new fashion magazine, and staring at an array of latest spring style will help her bud an inspiration. The only thing she is receiving from it is desperation. She has it tough this semester as she finally encounters her least favourite element in Scenography: Costume and Make-up.

Don’t get her wrong though. The girl adores fashion but not when she has to make one of her own. All she has to do for this one particular assignment is to draw them out. Sounds easy, right? Well, it is easy if you are someone as good as Kim Mingyu, Shinyoung’s words. She wonders how the boy gets things to sort out fast. He is not selected to be in the RQS Production for nothing, she concludes.

“I haven’t even picked out an anime character for the final assignment. I’m totally screwed.” Shinyoung lays her head, feeling a tad defeated at the mere thought of a task given ahead of time for subject’s final assessment. She knew she is long-troubled when this semester falls on the faculty’s twentieth anniversary. She heard about the task given by her friends who are a couple of semesters ahead of her. It is the risk she should have been prepared for when she signed up to be a Theatre major – or Scenography to be precise.

“I can’t take Haikyuu since Mingyu already stole it from me. Which character is he even planning to cosplay as? Tsuki? Kageyama? Oikawa? He fits none!” She curses and dramatically fakes a cry whilst listing out more anime she happens to watch in the span of her lifetime. Mind you, she does not grow up watching a lot of them and the fact she has to act out a scene which highlights the character does not help ease her wired mind at all.

 Also, she cannot act to save her life.

“Soonyoung!” The girl called the boy’s name after knocking on his bedroom’s door. He conveniently takes the day off of practice and chooses to stay in his room, probably binge-watching plentiful of boy groups and dance studios’ dance covers. “Yeah?” He answered when he opens the door. The right earphone dangles on his left side and she can clearly hear subtle music coming out of it. It does not sound like his typical dance jam too.

“Sorry for disturbing you.”

“You’re not exactly disturbing but I was actually studying DAY6’s discography.”

“Uh, but they don’t even dance.”

“Your point?”

Her point is that she is not there to argue. What is the point when she is a fan of the group’s music as well? That fact aside, Shinyoung steps into Soonyoung’s room and takes the chair in front of his study desk. Once the lad lands his bottom on his bed, he asks her to precede her mission to his bedroom.

“I have a friend from the Music major who watches a lot of anime in his free time. I can ask him for help you want.” He suggested and instantly holds his phone up to his sight to search for this so-called friend’s contact. “You help me a lot, Soon. But if you don’t mind me asking, why would a Music major watch a lot of anime anyway?”

“He watches them for fun, obviously. Other than that he said it inspires him to compose music. You’ll meet him soon. He’s in Rose Quartz production as well.” Soonyoung said without breaking eye contact from the phone. Even with his attention not a hundred per cent on the girl, he can hear her scoffing. “It’s a small world after all. Seungcheol is gathering a strong production team. That’s the first even for Rose Quartz, to be honest.”

“Was it that bad before?” He turns his gaze off his phone at long last, probably already sent a text to his friend to make an uncalled long list of anime that is not more than a season. She did not secure the limit number of episodes so he guessed she is fine with any. “The last few were almost terrible, remember? If it wasn’t for you who are super quick to put out the small fire sparked from the follow-spot wire, the whole place could’ve been burned down.”

“You’re exaggerating. You would’ve done the same if you’re there too.” Soonyoung spoke honestly, rolling his eyes while he can and slouches. Since his friend is conveniently in front of him, he might as well question her. “Are you going to tomorrow’s meeting?”

“Do I even have a choice? The Creative Team needs to group together so I can properly introduce myself and present my sketches for the overall concept.” She replied as her mind begins to project a number of messily drawn plans and it multiplies before the other finally adds onto the conversation.

“Will you be fine though?” He is very much concern about the whole ordeal. Being the only one who knows her back-story far into the past even before they officially met and became good friends, Soonyoung is a tad afraid of the outcome. After all, she has been trying her best to run away from the situation and the time has come for her to face it firsthand.

It is either now or never.

There is not a lot for her to cover one fine Monday morning. She only has one class regarding English and after that, her schedule is mostly free. She figured it will be a nice idea to bring along her file, just in case there is time to fill in by scanning the sketches in hand. Proven to be accurate as her prediction, Shinyoung claims a picnic table in the campus quad right by the performing arts building.

It is pleasant to be there. She wonders why she hardly ever been there to do most of her works. The tree above her acts as a canopy, preventing too much light disturbing her moment. When she is sure it is a perfect surrounding to be in, she opens the ring file before pouting a little. She should have swing by the cafeteria for a cup of coffee at least but it is too late to ditch the comfort.

Pictures, there are quite a number of them. Shinyoung loves referencing the local music stages for a lot of her works. Her professors appear to notice her fascination in the particular department too yet they still have no idea of her next real plan. To be frank, she is too. Aside from the colourful music stages, there are also actual theatre stages she pasted around her set drawing for the upcoming play. Putting colour palette on the right-hand side of the A4 papers so the rest of the production team can tell the vision she has for the performance stage.

Flipping to the next few pages is for Soonyoung to look upon – a diagram dotted with strange symbols which are exclusively understandable by the lighting crew. Since she has to get approval from the directors during the meeting in the later evening, she has not done much in terms of colours and textures she is going to use. She learned from Soonyoung that the play will be focusing more on the technical work rather than a grand scale set stage. So she might as well play with the things she has to kill some time.

“Shinyoung?” The girl cranes her head up from the work and presses the button of her smartphone to check the time. She is too deep in her own world to notice it is lunchtime so she is not exactly shocked to see the two Film students to call her attention off the file. “Oh, I almost forgot about the meeting. My bad.” She breaks into awkward laughter whilst packing her stuff.

“Hey, it’s alright. We can just hang out here. I already have food.” Jungkook shows his lunch box in one hand and points out, “I assume Mingyu already ate since he is not a fan of lunch meetings.”

“That would be a good idea but I don’t think everyone here already eaten, Kook,” Minghao stated, glaring notably on Jungkook who merely smiles but relieves when his friend is not as angry towards him after he turns to look at the only female in the group. “Let’s go get something at the cafeteria. Might as well since Mingyu is not here yet.”

“I guess,” She paused, figuring on what to bring along with her since she is not sure if leaving her things with someone she barely knows is the best option to take. Yet the girl has her eyes connect with Jungkook who is focusing on them. “Can I trust you to take care of my stuff while I’m gone?”

“You can trust me with your stuff, Shinyoung. We’ve been classmates for two semesters straight already.”

“Sure but we’re not exactly on talking-terms before, are we?” Wavered a tad on her words and hesitation still lingers in the air. After lightly biting her tongue, she refrains from sneering when Jungkook makes a shooing gesture over at their direction. With that done and walking ahead of her, Minghao lightly laughs at the exchange. He guesses he can get used to making new friends while he has the chance.

“What were you doing anyway? Didn’t your class finished an hour ago?” The fellow starts the conversation with a couple of questions. Thankfully, he genuinely wants to know the reasons instead of popping random statements for the sake of talking to the girl. Unlike Mingyu who shares the same classes as hers, she looks like she has something more on her plate. “I was looking back on my project and just can’t be bothered to return home.”

“A class assignment?”

“Nope.” Shinyoung stressed the word and shakes her head before continuing, “I joined a theatre production out of the campus. I get to lessen the written thesis if my professor actually approves of it.”

There is a smile appearing on Minghao’s face when she told him her plan. He is simply amused since she seems to have things planned out unlike him. He will probably write a full thesis since his topic will be based on film research which cannot be made into a project like hers. Majoring in film, diving deeper into the Cinematography side of the area, he can choose to go on and shoot something but again same trouble arises.

“That’s nice. Mingyu is doing the same thing. He got an offer quite recently and I assume you know what since you two are in the same class.”

“I do. We’re in the same thing. Right after this discussion thing, we’ll probably head over to RQS Studio for the meeting. Speaking of meeting…” Shinyoung halts once again when they arrive in the faculty’s cafeteria and lining up for food. Standing side by side, she says, “I want to apologise in advance if I can’t help much with next week’s presentation. I don’t exactly understand Cinematography. I enjoy watching movies but I don’t dive in deep to notice things.”

“It’s okay. Jungkook and I are not planning to make things hard for you and Mingyu. But there are some similarities between Cinematography and Scenography. I don’t know the second element to discuss for the presentation. Jungkook said it’s best to take lighting since we bet you guys already learn some in your theatre class.”

“Actually, we haven’t. Lighting is not easy, that’s for sure. Lucky for you guys though, stage lighting is my forte. I’ve been doing it for three years.”

“Cool.” The boy replied with a knowing bob of the head and fishes out his phone when he receives a notification. Since Shinyoung is doing the same, it is high-likely the current lunch meeting and Mingyu is already with Jungkook, initiating some of the plans which he and Minghao already talked about beforehand.

The group discussion went on in a surprisingly easy manner. Conveniently speaking, the Chinese member in the circle is happy to hear his friends said yes on his film suggestion. He was a bit afraid that they are not on the same boat but here they are sailing breezily on the sea. Even though they are quite a number of spots to cover, the two Film majors are more than happy to help the other two Theatre majors. All in all, it is a great first meeting.

“And I guess now that we agreed on a film to talk about, how about we regroup on, I don’t know… Friday evening?” Minghao who visually shines as the leader of the group questioned. Simultaneously, the three put up their thoughts on the next meeting date and it is obvious that Jungkook will wholeheartedly agree with the ordeal and the other two to think longer than planned. “So far, we’re fine with that. I’ll let you know if something comes up. Right, Shinyoung?” Mingyu glances over to the mentioned girl and nods as well.

Rose Quartz and Serenity Production Studio.

It feels as if it has been a long time since the last time she stands at the entrance, head tilted upwards just a small bit to read the metallic sign screwed above the door. She is buying some time. She even told Mingyu to head into the building first, saying that she wants to wait for Soonyoung. Parts of her words were true but really, she is not ready to enter and it is so not her character to fall behind.

Whatever her position was in the past, whenever it came to RQS, Shinyoung is one of the few that would burst into the dingy looking vicinity with either a bunch of electrical wires or boxes of screws. Because unknown to people in the production she had been joining, she really likes being in such an atmosphere.

She is fond of the wood scent in the open workshop located behind the studio’s building. She is fond of the screaming, yelling, and laughter that came along with the ever-so energetic Scenic team. She had little of those since she was always surrounded by the silence of the Technical team or the Lighting department to be exact. They just do not talk much to her. Up to date, she still has no idea why she would only talk to Soonyoung. That is if they were lucky to work side by side.

Has it been minutes? Has it been hours? How long has she been there?

“Are you going to continue standing in the middle of the path like an idiot or-”

Shinyoung knows the voice. It echoes in the back of her mind. Even with the maximum amount of effort, she harnesses to appear neutral is thrown down into the dumps. A sigh escapes her consciousness before her head makes it turn and their eyes finally meet after her seemingly endless attempts of avoiding him. She laughs darkly.

‘Still the same old Jeon Wonwoo.’

 MEET THE CREW