After Story 184

“The old lord of our radio has returned. Mr. Maru, please say hello to our listeners,” Suyeon said as she looked at him with urging.

Maru put his mouth against the mic,

“I guess I haven’t been here for four months now. I’m Han Maru, who has returned from a long break. Thank you for calling me without forgetting about me.”

“At least you kept your promise. I thought you wouldn’t come again after the drama.”

“You’re making me nervous with your attacks right off the bat.”

“This is nothing. Mr. Han Maru, did you have fun ignoring the pleas of our listeners and going drama-shooting instead?”

“I was having fun until just a minute ago.”

“And it’s not fun now?”

“I’m uncomfortable because a certain actress’ gaze is too fierce.”

Suyeon snorted.

“Everyone, you hear that? That’s how Maru is. If our writer did not call him and beg him to come back, he wouldn’t have come. Well, I guess bringing a famous actor here is as hard as reaching for the stars.”

“I’ve become a famous actor without me knowing, huh?”

“You didn’t know?”

“I completely didn’t know. It feels somewhat strange since Miss Kim Suyeon, who’s sweeping all sorts of prizes at all sorts of award ceremonies, is calling me a famous actor.”

After a mischievous exchange of greetings, Suyeon asked some questions to catch up,

“What have you been doing lately? You’ve finished your drama shoot, so you’re taking a break?”

“Yes. I’m taking a good break. During the shoot, I was planning to go traveling once it was over, but now that it actually is, I can’t be bothered to do anything, so I just stay at home all the time.”

“You’re at the age where you should go traveling. Weren’t you twenty-four this year?”

“Yes. In a month, when the year changes, I’ll be twenty-five.”

“You’re at an age where you should hate to be at home.”

“For some reason, staying home is really good. I’m happy even if I don’t do anything.”

“I guess staying at home is good. Once you’re done with a shoot, you lose all the tension, so you don’t want to do anything.”

“Right. Lying down and watching movies and TV programs is what’s good. I’m living like that with the cat I serve.”

Suyeon smiled.

“Since we’re on the topic of cats, what’s your cat’s name?”

“It’s Ricebun. She’s really stretchy.”

“Do you have a photo?”

Maru showed her a photo he had on his phone. Suyeon exclaimed.

“Everyone, this is one pretty cat. I’ll have it uploaded on the message board later, so definitely go have a look at it. Hey, why don’t you bring her in for the show one time?”

Maru spoke in a disappointed tone,

“She really hates going outside. You know how people say cats are territorial animals, right? She’s a total queen at home, but she’s a scaredy-cat when she’s outside. I took her out to a park to show her around, and she snarled like crazy in my arms.”

“That’s a pity. Then take a lot of photos and show them to our listeners. Many people have cats these days.”

“I will.”

The youngest writer from the team entered the booth. She put down a piece of paper in front of Suyeon before leaving.

“Usually, I don’t introduce other media channels on my show, but I guess I can’t help it with this drama. The interest in it is crazy high, even to the point that they are sending in letters. Case Number 0. What’s going to happen in the future?”

“Isn’t that too direct?”

“You’re not going to answer me anyway, so I might as well ask straight up. Since I asked up front, you’ll be a bad guy if you don’t answer me.”

“Is this how you run your show? Aren’t you being too much of a bully just because I haven’t been here for a while?”

“Who told you you could leave? Anyway, what really happens in the drama? Ever since the notice went up that you’d be returning to the program, the message board and the incoming texts are flooded with questions about it. It’s not on the level of a hot potato, it’s a burning potato.”

Maru looked at the real-time messages. Everyone was talking about the drama. It was hard to proceed with the segment where they listened to the worries of salarymen.

-Please tell us a little bit of the story.

-What happens to Ahn Changsik? He gets Yoon Hojung, right?

-Are you close to actor Yang Ganghwan?

-I’m really enjoying the drama.

Episode 6 ended yesterday. The viewing rate, which stayed at 0.1% for the first two episodes, had risen to 1% for the following two episodes. It was satisfactory to see the viewing rate on par with other private-owned channel dramas, but it rose once again for episodes 5 and 6. According to Messouth, the viewing rate investigation agency, the viewing rate was 4%.

Compared to the huge-budget espionage drama with Park Sinseo in it, which fell to 0.7%, it was a huge number.

“Did you expect that you’d receive so much attention?” Suyeon asked.

Maru raised his voice slightly,

“I really didn’t. I wished for it to do well, but many people around me said that it was going to be hard. They all said that the TV station had just opened up, and it’ll be hard to compete with existing public channels.”

“And yet, against everyone’s expectations, you’re receiving a huge amount of attention.”

“Right.”

“Is it because you are good at acting, Mr. Maru?”

“I guess that’s part of the reason?” He laughed softly before continuing, “I’m just joking. The story is really good. The people around me also told me that the progress is really fast so it’s really refreshing.”

“I thought that too. As it’s only 10 episodes, it feels like it cut off all the auxiliary branches and focused on just the core point.”

“As the number of episodes is smaller than existing dramas, I think the writer focused on the main event as much as possible. I saw many people who said that it’s really hard to keep up once you’re distracted for a few minutes.”

“Username Snow White says that it’s a drama that you can’t take your eyes off of even for a moment. It must mean that it’s that interesting, but at the same time, should you take your eyes off it, you’ll be hard-pressed to understand what’s going on.”

Maru nodded.

“It’s unexpectedly difficult to keep focusing for the span of one hour. That was why the director thought things over and over. He had to control the fatigue level of the drama to transmit the fun parts. If there are too many lines just to transmit intent, then it’ll even more tiring, so I think he did a good job of controlling that.”

“And your acting was the cherry on top.”

“You’re going to make people swear at me if you keep saying that.”

“Who told you to leave our program then?”

He also said a word to Suyeon, who was smiling mischievously,

“You say that, but you came out as a cameo too, SSu-D, didn’t you?”

“How can you say that? It was supposed to be a secret.”

“It’s all over the news already, you know?”

“It’s supposed to be a public secret. I was going to say it myself after the episode went live.” Suyeon crossed her arms. “Since we’re on the topic, I’ll talk about some of what I saw from Mr. Maru at the scene.”

As soon as Suyeon spoke, there was a message from the writer. It said to keep talking about the drama because the responses were good.

“On the radio, Mr. Maru has a docile side to him. When we listen to people’s worries, he always says practical things, so he might sound like a cold-hearted person, but it’s different if you meet him in person. But at the set — how should I put this — he’s really ferocious.”

“I am?” he responded to give a reaction.

“I was right next to him when he was acting with Mr. Yang Ganghwan, right? The two of them were having an acting bout, and if someone not in the know saw that, they might think that the two of them were irreconcilable enemies.”

“Senior Ganghwan put too much strength into his acting, so I had to clench my teeth so that I didn’t get pushed back. It might have looked fierce from the side.”

“How was it in regards to working with Mr. Ganghwan? He’s known to be quite an eccentric actor.”

“At the beginning of the story, we were doing relatively okay since there was no intense clash of emotions, but once the friction occurred and the conflict deepened, I was shooting like I was at war. The moment I stopped focusing, I would lag behind the two seniors in terms of acting, so it was really hard.”

Suyeon pulled her chin inwards.

“How were you with senior Hwang Hojoon? He’s the character who becomes your support in the drama.”

“Senior Hojoon is a really reassuring man even in reality. He looks out for me a lot during shoots. I don’t know if it’s okay to say something like this, but he’s one of the few people who can keep senior Ganghwan under control at the set.”

“Mr. Ganghwan is known to run wild in sets.”

“He just has so much energy. You know how sometimes, shoots happen for a whole day, sometimes going well into the night and even the next morning, right? Actors are only human, so once they’re at that stage, it becomes hard to even speak, but senior Ganghwan moves like he’s some perpetual motion machine.”

“I get what you’re saying. Someone who’s so proactive that it makes the people around them tired. Of course, without malice.”

“That’s exactly it. He’s a really good senior. He really is, but if I stay next to him, I feel like I’m drained of energy? That’s when senior Hojoon steps in.”

“How does he do it?”

“It’s nothing special. He only laughs heartily and says ‘Ganghwan, let’s be quiet for a bit.’ Just that.”

“And he becomes quiet?”

“Yes. He doesn’t listen to other people, but he really listens to senior Hojoon’s words. The two of them get along well.”

“Really? That’s something good I learned today.”

Suyeon smiled. After that, they rounded up the questions from the viewers and Maru replied to the ones he could.

Honestly, it was surprising. He didn’t know that the responses would be so good.

The passionate interest must be in part due to the fact that the listeners of the radio and Case Number 0 were in a similar age group.

“It seems that there really isn’t a single person who has been stressed at work today. All the texts and posts on the message boards are talking about the drama. I know we did have fun talking about it, but I’m slightly disappointed. It feels like we’re worse than the drama,” Suyeon said in a soothing voice.

Stress-related posts came up immediately.

“It’s too late. The show’s almost ending. Since we’re at it, should we listen to Mr. Maru’s stories until the end?”

“Aren’t you going to get an earful from the higher-ups later? We’re practically talking about a drama on another channel for thirty minutes.”

“Don’t worry about it. The big-unni producer outside who’s all smiles will be the one taking care of that. Right?” Suyeon said as she looked outside the glass door. The producer at her seat made a large circle with her hands.

“Since we got her permission, aren’t there any interesting episodes that happened during the shoot? Don’t talk about it anywhere else, and do it here. We can get some more listeners that way.”

“Then shall I talk about a few things?”

“Everyone, please turn up the volume. And if you think that the story is really bad, then give us a message immediately. We’ll be harsh critics here.”

Suyeon looked at him with lazy eyes. She looked like she was leaving the rest up to him since she was going to get some rest. He cleared his throat and spoke,

“I guess I should talk about senior Ganghwan first.”

* * *

[From 0.1% to 4%. The charm of ‘Case Number 0’ and the secret to a 40x increase in viewing rates.

Choi Junghwa pasted the title she had edited for the final time at the top of the document and saved it on the cloud server. Once it was done, the head editor would read it before it would go on the magazine ‘Movie Road.’

“The schedule, schedule,” she hummed and looked through her calendar diary.

She had an interview scheduled with Han Maru during lunch. It felt like just yesterday when she first got to interview him for ‘Depths of Evil,’ and that was at the beginning of the year.

“We’re spending January and December together.”

She checked over the word ‘interview’ written on December 3rd. An actor who had caused a storm in the first half of the year with his murderer role has now returned with a drama. The work was an incredible one as well.

He was practically a blue chip. Everyone was trying to get an interview from him.

However, Han Maru designated her as his interviewer just like he did at the beginning of the year. She felt grateful.

“Maybe he has a personal interest in me… or not.”

While he was an amiable person, he didn’t appeal his traits as a man. It felt like he was giving her respect as a business partner.

“Yes. Mr. Maru. Right now? I’m fine with it. Okay then, I'll see you there.”

She put on her watch and picked up her bag. The schedule was pulled forward. She left her house after checking if she didn’t miss anything.