“Oh, Roo, Roo! Why must you be Roo? Forget your father and cast off that na.”
On the crude stage, Gyeoul felt the heat of the lights pouring down over her head as unusually intense.
“Only your na is my enemy. Were you not a Montague, you would still be yourself. Ah—be so other na!”
Her firm, well-trained voice—honed through long years of acting—cut cleanly across the stage.
The play flowed on naturally. Roo appeared, having overheard Juliet’s soliloquy, and Juliet turned away shyly, walking off in quick steps.
“By whose guidance did you find your way here?”
“By love’s guidance. Love urged to seek you at first, and love lent its wisdom. I rely lent my eyes.”
Gyeoul had always been confined within the fra. Do not step beyond the lens—an old taboo for actors.
But she played Juliet using the movents she had learned in that mont when she watched Han Yeoreum roam freely across the stage.
“It is well that my face is hidden by the mask of night; otherwise, these cheeks would be red with a maiden’s sha.”
For the first ti, the stage felt free.
“I wish to keep my decorum, and I wish to take back the words I spoke. But farewell, decorum! Do you love ?”
I can act.
If she took everything of Han Yeoreum’s, tore it apart ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ and stitched it back together, she could go on acting forever. The certainty on Gyeoul’s stage deepened.
“You will say yes. And that word, I will believe.”
Gyeoul created a playful girl in love. As if daring Roo to catch her, she swayed lightly from one side of the stage to the other.
Each ti Gyeoul moved forward, the long red dress rippled like waves. Roo hurried after her in flustered steps.
That Juliet—etched conceptually into everyone’s minds—stood right before their eyes.
“Do you think you have won too easily? Then I will sulk, and with a frown refuse you.”
Though it was the stage of Roo and Juliet, Gyeoul was confident that all anyone would see was Do Gyeoul alone.
“Still, you must co begging for my love again. Otherwise, I won’t do it either—never.”
At the sight of Roo floundering in first love and the playful Juliet, Gyeoul felt the corners of the audience’s mouths lift.
‘Perfect.’
For the first ti ever—
“Stay just as you are; I, too, will forget everything else but this.”
—the sensation of being alive.
“I will think only of how truly happy I am to be by your side.”
It felt as though beneath Gyeoul’s feet lay not the stage floor, but Han Yeoreum herself.
At this very mont, Do Gyeoul was the perfect Juliet. A fact no one could deny.
“Farewell, farewell! Parting is such sweet sorrow that I will say good night till it be morn.”
The instant Juliet’s final farewell ended, the audience burst into applause without waiting a second. Applause so loud it felt as if the stage itself might shake.
Everyone must have sensed it. That Team B had no chance of winning.
Reading the situation exactly as it was, Gyeoul broke into a radiant smile on stage.
It was a smile filled with sincerity.
* * *
“The applause is really loud....”
“What do we do.”
A faint sense of despair drifted through the waiting room. It was only natural. Even though the actors of Team A had already left the stage, the applause still hadn’t stopped.
“Good job!”
“You were amazing, seriously.”
Team A, their adrenaline from the stage still burning hot, poured into the waiting room with cheers that bordered on shouts.
I had my eyes closed, but I could feel it. Their gazes brushed over one by one.
“Yeoreum.”
A light, warm voice ca close to my ear. I kept my eyes closed.
Then the owner of the voice placed a hand on my shoulder, as if telling to look.
“You’ll do well too.”
Only then did I slowly lift my eyelids. Since I was sitting, I had to tilt my head up to look at the person speaking.
“Thank you.”
As expected, it was Do Gyeoul. I t the gaze looking down at and replied. If Do Gyeoul was an actor who understood the stage—
“I’ll do well.”
—then I was an actor who understood the audience.
* * *
During the intermission given before Team B’s performance began, everyone had Do Gyeoul’s na on their lips.
“Guess she’s been acting since she was a child—her acting is just wow.”
“She probably didn’t even have much ti to rehearse together. Must be born with it.”
Reporter Wi Deduck.B, typing out an article on his laptop, couldn’t help but marvel at Gyeoul’s matured acting. He had never seen her like that before.
‘Looks like that hiatus really helped....’
Do Gyeoul’s presence on stage still seed to linger before his eyes. Her curt yet playful take on Juliet was lovely.
Almost like Yuseol, the cute tsundere female lead from .
“But do we really need to watch the sa play twice?”
“You think so too, right? Let’s head out soon. If we stay for Team B, it’ll get too late.”
Perhaps because of the quality of the play they had just seen, people began to leave in droves.
It was the sa story, a play everyone here already knew. There was no need to watch it twice. The audience hurried past Reporter Wi’s seat.
“...What about our Yeoreum. Should I use shadow clone jutsu or sothing to fill the seats around her?”
Aetami, sitting beside him, muttered gloomily. It felt like she was already sharing the sa emotions he was.
That it wouldn’t be easy for Yeoreum to overco this atmosphere.
“They’re pitiful, the people who don’t know Yeoreum’s beauty....”
“Exactly. They’ll regret it later, one hundred percent.”
Even while continuing to type, Reporter Wi replied to Aetami. He spoke like it was a joke, but the heaviness in his heart couldn’t be helped.
‘There’ll be a aningful difference, starting with the applause.’
Aetami seed to be thinking the sa thing and fell silent. The reporters at the venue had already finished uploading articles about Do Gyeoul.
[Perfection itself—Do Gyeoul’s DaeYeJong final play ]
[’s Do Gyeoul, there’s a reason for those ratings~ “Diligent even in school life”]
Photos of Do Gyeoul taken during the curtain call easily caught the public’s interest. She was the most beloved actress of the most successful drama at the mont.
Do Gyeoul’s na began sweeping through communities at breakneck speed.
[HOT/ Do Gyeoul’s Juliet costu causing an uproar right now.jpg]
Guess she still worked hard on school even with that insane schedule lololol
(article photo.jpg)
Today’s DaeYeJong final play, Juliet
-I didn’t even give birth to her but I’m proud, God Gyeoul I love you♥
-??? She didn’t take a leave of absence? How did she even manage that, when does she sleep..
︎˪She probably sleeps when she’s dead TT_TT seriously, even Do Gyeoul lives like this LOOOL
-Feels like the Juliet I had in my head just got shoved right in front of my eyes lolol wow, shot from below and not even a hint of a double chin, she’s just insanely beautiful
After finishing his monitoring, Reporter Wi lifted his head and looked around.
There were scattered empty seats, and the remaining audience mbers were either on their phones or talking about how good Do Gyeoul’s acting had just been.
A reporter trying to make another article out of Pi Chaewon from , industry insiders who had to check every play by default, other students attending DaeYeJong, and musical-theater fans who had won bloody ticket battles.
‘...The expectations for Yeoreum are way too low.’
It was because Team A had just executed the image so perfectly. The version of in everyone’s heads had already swept through once.
-Soon, the play by the first-year students of Daehan Arts General University will begin. Distinguished guests, please....
Reporter Wi’s uneasy feeling persisted until the curtain rose. When the dark curtain lifted upward and bright light illuminated the right side of the stage—
“Listen to . Do not think of that woman.”
Roo appeared, dressed in hanbok.
“Ah, how can I....”
Roo, wearing an elegant blue durumagi, half-covered his face with a fan painted with plum blossoms.
Speaking slowly, with a sigh mixed in, this Roo felt far more restrained and mature than the one before.
“How can I not think of her.”
Roo slowly lowered the fan as he continued his line. The jeweled bead threaded onto his hat string chid softly. A sly smile clung to his lips.
“...That’s insane.”
Reporter Wi covered his mouth without realizing it. If Team A’s Roo had been a fresh-faced boy, then Team B’s Roo was a sharp, striking scholar.
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