After Story 234

She lifted her left leg and touched around her achilles’ heel. She could feel her rough skin instead of the bandaid she put on during the day.

No wonder it hurt. Haneul took off her heels and picked them up. Maybe she should get them fixed.

She got off the elevator. She inputted the passcode for the door and went inside. An unfamiliar pair of trainers was there. Haneul put her heels next to those trainers and set foot in the living room.

The first thing she saw was the neatly cleaned table. The living room sofa and table had been neatly cleaned as well.

He really was quite obsessed with cleanliness, alright. She took a sip of water before going inside the bedroom.

Her husband had fallen asleep with a book in his hand. It seemed he had been dragged to dreamland while he was reading a book while in bed. She put the book on the bedside table and changed her clothes.

After she took a shower and came back, she saw her husband greet her with a sleepy face.

“You’re here.”

“I came back a while ago. You should get some sleep, you must be tired.”

She sat down at the makeup desk and sprayed some facial mist. She could see the reflection of her husband through the mirror. He was blinking as though he was tired.

“I was going to wait because I had to talk to you about something, but I guess I ended up falling asleep.”

“You got to cleaning as soon as you came home without even resting, so there’s no way you’d have enough energy, is there? You could’ve left cleaning for tomorrow.”

“I couldn’t just ignore what I saw. How about your work?”

“I finished things up. The sample will arrive at the factory tomorrow. We’re back on schedule, so I think I can take a breather.”

“Good work.”

.

Haneul applied some moisture cream on her face before going to bed. Her husband shifted to the left to make some space for her.

“What did you want to talk about?”

“It’s related to money. I should talk to you about it first before proceeding, right?”

“Is it a large amount of money?”

“I’m thinking around 200 million won maximum.”

“Are you buying a car?”

“No, I plan to invest in Yoonseok.”

Haneul nodded. She heard the circumstances before, so she wasn’t that surprised.

“200 million isn’t an amount you should be using for a short film. You won’t be getting paid for it.”

“I expect it to be around an hour and thirty minutes. Well, the production budget will increase a lot depending on how the shoot goes.”

“Well, I guess 200 million is nothing if you want to pay proper human resources prices.”

Haneul looked into his eyes and spoke,

“Use it. It’s money you need to spend. It’s for times like this that we earned earnestly.”

“It might be money I’m throwing into the void.”

“I guess you’ll have to shoot a few more commercials then.”

Haneul covered herself with the thin duvet. 200 million: ?while it wasn’t?a small sum, it wasn’t something they couldn’t afford to use either. It wasn’t like he was saying he was going into debt and was using his own money, so there was no need to hold him back.

Whether it was her or her husband, they were earning enough so that there shouldn’t be any problems with everyday life.

The house they moved into increased in price, and the stocks, American government bonds, and Chinese-related ETFs were making a profit as well. She had also looked into a few good real estate places.

“Now that I think about it, we reached this point in just three years. I was worried when we just started after gaining our memories, but we managed to gain financial stability quite quickly.”

“You were just that good at business.”

“Most of it was luck.”

“Grabbing that luck is also skill.”

She smiled as she felt her husband stroke her cheek.

“Did you tell Yoonseok you’d be investing in him?”

“I did, but I didn’t tell him how much.”

“He would definitely be surprised if he found out you’re thinking about 200 million.”

“Who knows? He might ask for more.”

Haneul pushed a pillow under her neck. Sleep overwhelmed her.

She wanted to talk more, but she had musical practice in the morning. If she didn’t get any sleep now, she would be singing drowsily in the morning.

“You must be tired. Get some sleep,” Maru said.

She yawned softly before closing her eyes.

“Let’s go get something delicious once I finish practice tomorrow.”

“What would you like?”

“I want sushi.”

“Then we should go eat sushi and clam hotpot.”

She turned around to face her husband and calmed down her breathing. The body heat she could feel next to her made her calm down. She didn’t know how much time passed, but she opened her eyes when she heard some snoring.

Haneul groaned and sat up slightly before looking next to her. Her husband was snoring with his mouth open.

She looked at him for a while before twisting his nose slightly.

“...Sheesh.”

The snoring stopped. Haneul fell on her pillow again and closed her eyes. Thankfully, she fell asleep soon.

* * *

“You aren’t kidding me, are you?” Yoonseok asked back in a daze.

Maru sipped some coffee and replied, “Do you think I’d be joking about money? It’s my own money too.”

“You’re really going to invest 200 million won in me?”

“That’s the maximum. It’d be great if I could do less.”

“It’s such a large amount of money that it feels unreal.”

“You’ll realize it’s not that big once you start shooting. Once you sign official work contracts and start shooting, money will melt away like snow.”

“Contracts?”

“You have to write work contracts with the people you’re hiring.”

“I heard they don’t do that most of the time.”

“Normally, yeah. That’s why there are people who end up dying from overwork. I want to conform to standard labor laws for the movie I’m investing in at least.”

Yoonseok nodded.

“What you need to do now is to plan a detailed roadmap. If the production budget isn’t that high and you want to give people proper treatment, then you must waste as little money as possible. The most ideal situation would be to finish the shoot within the number of shots that you’re expecting, but that’ll probably be hard. If you want to have a plan on that level, your design must really be perfect.”

“I’ll try my best so that you won’t waste any of the money you invest in me.”

Yoonseok made a resolute face, and Maru told him to listen while drinking. Yoonseok didn’t have a single sip of the coffee while the ice was melting.

“Despite being the investor, I don’t plan to interfere with the contents of the film. I’ll say a few things if I think it really isn’t right, but the plot will be entirely up to you.”

“Okay.”

“If you keep working as a film director, this kind of experience won’t be that common. Normally, both the production companies and distribution companies are bound to interfere. Of course, they say the director has the strongest say in movies, but the more investment money you receive, the more things you’ll have to yield. Right now, try everything you want as a director when you can.”

“My heart is racing already. I thought I was mostly ready, but now that you’re telling me that I’m getting money, it’s making my head spin.”

“You should talk to Jiseon a lot about the scheduling. It should help out a lot. You should set a schedule based on when you’re renting the shooting location and then adjust to the actors’ schedules. I’ll adjust mine to yours as much as possible, so don’t worry about that.”

“You don’t have anything in your schedule?”

“Not for quite a while. I plan to take a break until I finish shooting this film.”

“I really should do my utmost best, huh.”

“You have to do your best, but you also have to do well. You know that, right?”

“Ever since I heard that you were giving me money, whatever you say puts me on a rollercoaster. I don’t want to be swayed by what you say, but I keep getting swayed anyway.”

Maru smiled and looked at his phone. It was about time he got up.

“Are you going to be holding the camera?”

“No, I’m going to look for a cameraman in internet communities. I saw that there were many people who worked on films. I’ll try contacting them. I don’t know how the payment would go though.”

“Good. Once the scale of a film becomes big, the director can’t be the one handling everything. You can write that you cast me when you put up the notice.”

“Can I do that?”

“You have to. What else would a professional see in you to draw them to participate? It’s the same when you recruit actors. If you find it necessary, hold an audition as well.”

“Okay.”

Maru drank the rest of the coffee and stood up.

“You won’t have any time to rest for a while. You have to do a lot of the groundwork before the shoot in order to reduce the production fee and increase the quality of the final film. Give me a call if you’re stuck on anything.”

“I’ll call you only when it’s absolutely necessary. You solved the biggest problem, so I’d be shameless to ask for more.”

“As you wish. I have an appointment, so I’ll get going now. Also, call me when you’re looking into commercial buildings. I’ll give you some of my impressions as well.”

“I will.”

They left the café.

Yoonseok got on his bike with a flushed face. After telling him things like “I won’t disappoint you”, “I’ll do my best”, “I’ll make the best film” and whatnot, he pedaled off.

Maru was filled half with worry and half with anticipation to see how well the young director would do. He liked the scenario, but writing and producing a film was an entirely different story.

There were numerous directors who shot a disappointing film with a great scenario and script. This film should be a great opportunity to grasp Yoonseok’s skills.

Maru drove to the office where Daemyung should be working. He bought some dumplings on the way.

He opened the door.

“Are things going well?” he asked Daemyung, who was sitting in front of a laptop.

“No, I can’t write any of the lines.”

“Don’t keep holding onto what you can’t do and eat first. You’re okay with dumplings, right?”

Maru looked at Daemyung who ate a bunch of dumplings in a flash. He had gained some weight in just a few months. It seemed he was relieving his stress by eating.

“You see this? I’m gaining a lot of weight sitting at a desk all day after doing manual labor.”

“It’s about time you start managing your weight then.”

“Haneul told me that too. She said she’d forcefully send me to the gym if I gain any more weight.”

“It’s free exercise, so it’s a good thing.”

Maru picked up the script on the desk. The story that Haneul plotted out was assuming a shape in the form of a script.

“I need to polish it more.”

“I’ll just skim through it.”

Maru slowly flipped over the pages. It was the story of time and of a man and a woman. It was her story as well as his story. A fantasy, that was not a fantasy for the two people.

“Would Groundhog Day feel like this from another angle? No, there are so many differences, so it can’t be just explained with a difference in perspective.”

He closed the script as he listened to Daemyung’s words.

“The lines are good. It portrays the personality of the characters.”

“It still feels somewhat lacking though. I want to make it stand out more. At the base, I’m thinking about the two of you as I write the lines before adding some spice of film on top of it. This was my first time working on a script, so I was pretty nervous, but when I actually tried, I could write something.”

“You’re bound to get used to whatever you do.”

He went to the rooftop of the building they were in. The sunlight was scorching, but the breeze was pretty cool.

“This is something I’ve been feeling as I’m writing, but I think Haneul decided the male protagonist would be you from the first time she started writing. When I look at the script she wrote before, I can picture you saying the lines clearly in my head,” Daemyung said.

Having returned to the office, Daemyung said that he needed to write and that they should have a drink next time.

“Don’t push yourself. There’s still time.”

“This is something I felt while writing, but you’re bound to forget if you don’t write when you think of something. You need to write when it’s time to write.”

“Work hard.”

Maru closed the door and left. The things that started off small grew big and started taking shape.

It seemed that he was going to get busy in a while.

He waved his car keys as he went down the stairs.