“Let’s come back after some food. Tell everyone to regather by 2 o’clock,” said Park Hoon as he cracked his neck sideways.

He left a few days ago to cover for the historical drama B team at the request of a senior at the TV station and returned yesterday, and it seemed that his fatigue hadn’t completely disappeared yet. This was why he disliked shooting in the countryside.

“Please come back by 2 after lunch,” Minjoong shouted.

Until a while ago, Minjoong was just an immature assistant director, but now he was a full-fledged worker capable of handling his own jobs.

“Senior, let’s go. I booked the cutlassfish restaurant nearby.”

“You should take some people and eat without me. I’ll look after the equipment.”

“Eh? You should come with us.”

“Go when I tell you to. Senior! Please go and have your meal. I’ll look after the equipment.”

The camera director made a circle with his fingers and then took the camera team and left. The lighting team also left their equipment behind before starting to leave.

“Then I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

“Take your time. Also, sir Hwang likes cutlassfish a lot, so give him the big one.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Don’t order any rice wine though. One glass will become two.”

“Understood.”

Park Hoon stretched his legs out as he leaned back in the temporary chair. Right now, he needed sleep more than he needed food. In his mid twenties, when he just entered the company, he didn’t feel anything when he stayed up the entire night, but now that he was nearing his forties, he had to prepare himself for quite a lot if he wanted to stay up the entire night. As stamina meant everything in this field, it was about time he left the field for the desk, but Park Hoon wished that he could shout ‘cut’ even when he was past 50.

“Director, aren’t you going to eat?”

Suyeon, wearing a white T-shirt and jeans, waved her hand as she approached him.

“Nah. You should have yours, Miss Kim.”

“I heard that the cutlassfish restaurant nearby is really good.”

“Maybe it’s good, but I can’t leave behind all this equipment here. Urgh, I’m lacking energy so stop talking to me and go get some food.”

“Thank you for all your work.”

Park Hoon nodded. If he was shooting at the school like he normally did, he would’ve gone to the restaurant with ease of mind, but he was outside right now. This was in order to shoot a field trip episode that was essential to youth dramas.

“The Spring wind is good.”

Early April, this time of the year had the perfect weather to shoot outside since it was neither cold nor hot. Park Hoon covered his eyes with the shade of his baseball cap before placing his feet on the camera box. This place felt like heaven.

When he enjoyed about ten minutes of relaxation, his hunger, which he had forgotten about, came back to him. Now that he thought about it, he only had a pack of soy milk for breakfast. Although he bought those soy milk packs since they were good for the body, he started drinking them as replacements for breakfast after some time.

He reached inside his jacket in order to soothe his hunger. The chocolates he always brought with him out of habit were supposed to be there, but his fingers came across nothing. Maybe he finished them yesterday? He suddenly remembered that he was chewing on something during the night.

Park Hoon sighed before taking his hand out. There wasn’t anyone around either, so it seemed that he was going to have to wait in the middle of nowhere. Just then, he found someone walking into the shade of a nearby tree with slow steps. He pushed aside the cap that covered his vision before having a closer look.

“Maru, what’s that in your hand?”

Maru, who was about to sit down and lean on the tree, stood up again. Park Hoon’s attention was on the black plastic bag in Maru’s left hand. It was highly probable that there was food in it.

“Are you not going to eat lunch?” asked Maru as he walked up to him.

Park Hoon said ‘later’ before pointing at the plastic bag.

“It’s bread and milk. Would you like to eat some? I only got them because I felt low on sugar. There’s strawberry flavor and chocolate flavor. Which one do you want?”

“Chocolate if possible.”

Maru took out some bread and milk from the plastic bag. The bread was a type of castella that was known for being hard.

“Don’t kids these days dislike bread like this?”

“I once ate it like it was my main food, so.”

“This?”

“Yes.”

Park Hoon stuffed the bread in his mouth before drinking a bit of the milk. When the sweetness seeped into his body, he felt much more clear-headed. It seemed the reason he felt tired was the same as Maru - he was running low on sugar.

“But you’re still young, why are you worried about your sugar level?”

Maru didn’t reply and just grinned instead.

To Park Hoon, Maru was a peculiar kid. Other child actors around Maru’s age usually found him very difficult to deal with. Recently, they started asking him questions about acting, perhaps due to all the time they spent together, but they never talked about personal stuff. A young actor and a director. It somewhat sounded natural for there to be some distance between the two, and even Park Hoon thought that it would be rather weird if the two were close, but when he talked to Maru, he strangely felt at ease. It wasn’t just because of Maru’s character. When he talked to him, he felt like there was something in common. If it was a kid pretending to be an adult, he would feel something iffy about it, but Maru didn’t give him that feeling.

“Is the cutlassfish really good?”

“It’s decent. The roasted one is meh, but you can eat the simmered one because of the spice.”

“Don’t people usually refer to that as bad?”

“Well, it is edible. If you can’t leave because you have to look after the equipment, I’ll look after them in your stead.”

“Forget about it. I’m responsible for them. It will be a huge pain if I leave it to you and something bad happens.”

“I guess that’s true.”

“But why are you here alone? Where’s your usual crew?”

“I’m not sure, I left early after eating. There was a café in front of the restaurant, so they might be drinking coffee there.”

Park Hoon nodded.

“Would you like more?”

Park Hoon hesitated as he looked at the bread in front of him before accepting it. Ruining his appetite with sweet food was secondary. Right now, the priority was to ease his tongue and stomach that desperately craved food.

“I’m not stealing this from you okay? I’m only eating it because you’re giving it to me.”

“Why of course.”

He chewed pieces off the bread before suddenly thinking that it was quite funny seeing this scene. He was getting food from a little kid. Just as he licked off all the cream on his hand, he heard some rustling behind him.

“What’s this? And here I thought I could score some points with these.”

When he turned his head around, he saw Suyeon, whose hands were holding a paper bag with a café logo on it.

“I guess I’ll have them instead.”

She brought over a folding chair before naturally sitting next to him.

“Miss Kim, what about lunch?”

“I’m not good with fish. Maru, would you like one?”

“Sure. I’m trying to lose weight, but I can give up for today.”

“Hey, you’ll never lose weight like that. You should be desperate.”

Park Hoon looked at the sandwich moving around in front of him before reaching out.

“You want one too, director?”

“Give me one if there’s some left. For some reason, my body is craving for some flour today.”

“This isn’t free, so you have to treat me to something later.”

“How petty.”

Thanks to the fresh vegetables in the sandwich, his mouth felt much better now.

“You should eat some more. I was too greedy and ended up buying too much.”

“You’re right, why did you buy so much? Who’s going to eat all this?”

“I’ll just say that this is a stress-relief method for an actress. Now, get eating. I want to get some vicarious satisfaction from it.”

It seemed that he wasn’t going to get that cutlassfish. His stomach wasn’t big enough to eat fish after eating all the sandwiches here.

“Now that I think about it, you’re both in JA, huh,” he said as he drank the coffee that Suyeon gave him.

Suyeon nodded.

“Rather than me, why don’t you look after your junior?” asked Park Hoon.

“I do. I even called you to look at him in a good way. Well, it turned out that you forgot about all of it. Also, he’s the type who would get his own food by himself, so I don’t need to worry about him.”

“I gladly accept any food coming my way. But you keep wanting something from me when you give me something so that’s why I don’t take anything from you.”

“There’s no free lunch in this world. If something comes, then something goes.”

Park Hoon watched Maru and Suyeon talking to each other. He had never seen these two together during the four months he had been working with them. There was no rule that stated that people belonging to the same agency had to be close, and in fact, he saw many cases where they were even wary of each other, so he thought that these two might be such a case, but from the way things were going now, these two seemed to be on pretty close terms.

“Are you two close?”

“No.”

That reply came from Maru.

“We’re really close. Just like siblings.”

And that was from Suyeon.

The two replies came at almost the same time, and Maru didn’t seem to show much of a reaction while Suyeon tried to take away the sandwich in Maru’s hand. Of course, Maru did not let it get taken. He opened his mouth wide and stuffed in half of the sandwich in one go.

“Look at that, he’s totally selfish.”

“You ‘han’t ‘yust ‘hake ‘hack wha’ you ‘have away.”

“Say it after you eat it.”

“You can’t just take back what you gave away. They say that even dogs don’t touch you when you eat.”

Park Hoon came to his own conclusion after looking at the two: the two were very close.

“Uhm, director, may I ask you something?” Maru asked after wiping his mouth with some tissue.

“What is it?”

“When we shoot, there are cuts taken from the main character’s perspective, right?”

“The POV cut. What about it?”

“When should it be used to be effective?”

Park Hoon stared at Maru.

“Are you studying directing already? You want to try your hand at being a director?”

“No. I am participating in a film festival soon, and what we’re making is made by just high school students, so we are lacking a lot of things. The script is pretty decent after polishing it up, but I’m worried about how to make it look good on camera.”

“Film festival?”

“Apparently, it’s the Seoul Youth Film Festival. I’m also on the helping side, so I’m not sure about the details yet.”

“Oh, that. The international competition that’s being held for the first time this year, huh.”

“You know about it?”

“I do. I don’t know a lot, but I do know one of the judges for that. But hey, are you directing that film?”

“No, I’m an actor.”

“Yeah, you should stick to one thing. You’ll end up losing both if you try to chase two. Um, POV cuts are taken from a subjective angle. It’s very good for expressing the mental state of the character. Even when just showing a simple view, when it’s taken from the main character’s perspective, the audience will try to find some meaning in it. In suspense films, the tension of the emotions will vary according to how well you use those POV cuts.”

“Oh, I see.”

“If you want to use a POV cut, you first have to make it clear whose perspective it is. You can’t have the audience wondering whose view it is. However, POV cuts require some specific cuts before, so it’s no fun if you use them all the time. It’s not called the ‘point of view’ for nothing. You should use it in scenes that you want to emphasize but think twice before using it. It will be a waste of cuts if you try to emphasize something unnecessary.”

“Thank you. I’ll remember it to tell the person that will be directing the film.”

“Man, the world has gotten good. High school students can shoot films now, and there’s a place where they can show it off.”

He didn’t say that in a mocking tone. He sounded truly envious. This was something unimaginable when Park Hoon himself was in high school

“Try your best. A director only gets better the more he shoots, and actors improve the more they get shot.”

After saying those words, he sat up. Maru and Suyeon also stood up.

“Alright, have a nice rest.”

“I’ll be leaving too. Also, you should get some sleep. It’s really dark under your eyes,” Suyeon said as she pointed at his eyes.

When he yawned and after getting some rest, Minjoong came back telling him to get lunch.

“Nah.”

“Aren’t you going to eat?”

“I had something to eat separately. But rather than that, didn’t you get a phone call from an unknown number recently?”

“An unknown number?”

“Wasn’t there some woman that talked in a really soft voice?”

“Soft voice, ah! There was. Why do you ask?”

“What did you do back then?”

“Well, she was saying something, but I couldn’t hear anything so I just hung up. It was during the shoot as well.”

Park Hoon faintly smiled and nodded his head.

“Congratulations.”

“Eh?”

“Writer Lee Hanmi wants to see you personally. She wants to see who it was that hung up on her after answering her phone call like that.”

Park Hoon continued,

“Let’s pull the shoot by 10 minutes. It looks like everyone has eaten already. The higher ups have been nagging about going over budget and whatnot recently too. Okay?”

“S-senior. Was that really writer Lee Hanmi?”

“Consider yourself lucky. That proud Mrs. Lee wants to see you in person. Who knows? She might throw another script at you for your own personal work. Though, you’ll probably be half dead by then because the president will kill you.”

He tapped on Minjoong’s shoulder. Minjoon’s face was going dark.

‘Ah, now that I think about it….’

Writer Lee Hanmi also said that she wanted to see Suyeon once. Since she was an immensely popular writer, he couldn’t just ignore her. Suyeon would also probably accept gladly if he told her that.

“What are you doing? Message everyone.”

“Y-yes.”

Park Hoon chuckled as he looked at Minjoong, who looked like he was dying.