The stage fell silent. Myeong Jeha knew the distinctive weight of this kind of air well. It carried the fresh shock that ca from encountering an unexpected scene.
‘Sharp mind, seriously....’
Swallowing a smile to himself, Myeong Jeha recalled Han Yeoreum from last month.
“Why hanbok?”
“We need to smash the image people automatically associate with . First, let’s go pick out hanbok.”
The anxious look had long since vanished. In that fleeting instant, it was as if she had already drawn a new in her head.
“You’re going to reinterpret it entirely in an Eastern style?”
“If people are taking the ti to co watch a student play, they’re probably people who know theater to so extent. People who are used to analyzing and finding aning.”
Han Yeoreum thought of the audience. Of the spectators who had to sit in the sa seats and watch the sa story again.
“You don’t explain the narrative outright. You make the audience—whose concentration is already slipping—think. Make sure they can’t even spare a bit of attention for the earlier .”
Like a single audience mber looking up from below the stage. It was a clever approach.
But this wasn’t the realm of acting. What Myeong Jeha wanted was Han Yeoreum acting, not Han Yeoreum choosing costus.
“That’s a discussion for onstage. But what if you can’t beco Juliet? Start with the character. Is your Juliet really going to end with just changing outfits?”
At Myeong Jeha’s cold question, Yeoreum lightly shook her head.
“Juliet will beco . She has no choice but to.”
“On what grounds?”
“Think a little more, like the question you just asked. Why do you think everyone wants to play Juliet?”
In that short span of ti—costus, concept, and even the character—Han Yeoreum had finished everything.
“I’m going to redistribute my lines. All of the Act One lines.”
Like a protagonist who had been preparing for a very long ti.
Before long, it was ti for Myeong Jeha to exit the stage. Unfolding the fan he held and once again covering his face, Jeha turned his back, the long hem of his durumagi flaring brilliantly. It was a clean exit.
Ten seconds before the audience would et the old, shabby Juliet.
* * *
Aetami clasped her hands together as if in prayer.
‘Now... it’s Yeoreum’s turn...!’
She could already imagine Yeoreum’s voice echoing across the darkened stage.
As Roo exited, the dim lights brightened once more. This ti, attention shifted to the left side of the stage.
“Nurse, where is Juliet? Please go call that child.”
Juliet’s mother called for her, and then—
“I told her to co. Hello there, little lamb, sparrow-like miss! Is there such a bride as this? Lady Juliet!”
—when the Nurse called out in turn.
“⋯.”
Juliet appeared, her entire face covered by a worn jangot.
Her attire was completely different from Roo’s just monts before. Unlike Myeong Jeha, whose refined collar had swayed elegantly with each step, Han Yeoreum’s Juliet looked utterly shabby.
“It’s nothing else. Nurse, step aside for a mont. We need to talk among ourselves. No—just stay. You listen too, Nurse.”
Co to think of it, Lady Capulet and the Nurse were also wearing plain white cotton hanbok. The flashy silk bojagi they held had drawn attention away from their otherwise modest clothing.
‘...You can see the difference in households right away!’
With years of drama-watching under her belt, Aetami imdiately caught on. At this point, it wasn’t sothing you thought through logically. You just felt it in your head.
“As you know, Nurse, this child is of a suitable age for marriage now.”
Lady Capulet fussed as she unfolded the bundle she held.
Inside was a neat stack of fine hanji paper. A detail Team A’s hadn’t had.
‘That’s a marriage horoscope docunt!’
Aetami realized at once. The papers sent ahead to check compatibility before a wedding.
In Team A, the marriage to Count Paris had passed by like a breeze. In Team B, it was being handled far more concretely.
“Well, the reason I ca is precisely to discuss that marriage. Juliet, tell . How do you feel about it?”
“I know the young lady’s heart exactly! She’ll surely see it as an honor she never even dread of!”
Still clutching the worn jangot, Yeoreum said nothing.
‘...Wait, wasn’t that Juliet’s line?’
A few quick-witted audience mbers realized that all of Juliet’s lines were being spoken by the Nurse instead.
Naturally, the Nurse’s talkative character began to shine. The image of soone who had raised Juliet since childhood ca vividly to mind.
“If fondness cos from looking, then she’ll look well enough to grow fond!”
Even at the Nurse’s glib reply, Juliet remained silent. That very silence seed to convey her tangled feelings even more strongly.
The reality of having to marry a man she did not love. That fact struck the audience all the harder.
‘She doesn’t say a single word until the end....’
With no particular display from Juliet, she exited, and the scene moved on to Roo and Juliet’s first eting.
The lights went out once more for the transition.
Rustle—.
That was when it happened. A rustling sound rippled through the theater.
‘...That’s Rule Number One of musical-theater etiquette violations!’
Then Aetami noticed sothing else.
That is—
‘Leaning forward!’
People bending their upper bodies forward to see the stage better.
The rustling just now was the sound of people adjusting their posture. Even though most here had enough theater-going experience to know better.
In other words—
‘They’re so absorbed right now that trivial things like that don’t even occur to them.’
It ant they were completely imrsed in Team B’s .
* * *
Team B expressed Roo and Juliet’s first eting through their garnts. Roo entered from the left, Juliet from the right, walking toward each other.
The tip of Roo’s fan, held between his long sleeves, brushed against Juliet’s outer robe. Caught on the fan, the robe slipped off weakly.
“Ah....”
That was the mont. For the first ti, Juliet’s voice spread across the stage.
The face she had never once shown the audience held a fleeting look of surprise. The sa was true of Roo.
The relaxed smile Myeong Jeha had worn while others delivered their lines vanished instantly. It was the sa surprise—but with a different weight.
‘Han Yeoreum....’
Geum Bitgang stood at the very back of the stage. The best spot to take everything in at a glance.
As Yeoreum fully revealed herself to the audience, Geum Bitgang slowly scanned their faces.
‘My eye wasn’t wrong.’
She recalled a past lecture—what she considered the most important thing in acting, that ‘one thin line’.
The mont she had begun to place expectations on Han Yeoreum, who understood that difference so clearly.
“As penance for that sin, let my lips, like two blushing pilgrims, stand ready to smooth away that rough touch with a gentle kiss.”
With his hands clasped behind his back, Roo leaned toward Juliet, speaking in a voice like one coaxing an innocent lamb. Juliet, her back turned beneath the robe, continued in a shy voice.
“Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much. For this hand shows fair devotion so....”
It was different from the lines spoken by Do Gyeoul’s Juliet. The weight of emotion was incomparable.
‘...Because everyone in the audience already knows the ending.’
No one here was unaware of the fated eting, the confession of love, and the tragic end that followed.
That was why Juliet’s trembling hesitation—her inability to open her heart easily—felt all the more pitiful.
At so point, the air in the auditorium changed. A silence unique to deep concentration took over the space.
“Oh, Roo, Roo! Why must you be Roo? Forget your father and cast off that na.”
There was sothing especially heart-wrenching about the love of this poor, shabby Juliet. You could clearly understand what it ant for family to divide the two of them. Dressed in plain cotton hanbok, Juliet sat on the floor.
“Only your na is my enemy. Were you not a Montague, you would still be yourself. Ah—be so other na!”
The light shining down on Juliet looked like moonlight. Slowly pouring out her anguish, Yeoreum lowered the robe that had covered her face down to her shoulders.
As if she could no longer endure the suffocation.
“By whose guidance did you find your way here?”
But the mont Roo’s voice sounded, Juliet quickly pulled the robe back over her head with swift hands.
“By love’s guidance.”
In stark contrast to Juliet’s attire, the hopae and jade ornant at Roo’s waist glimred softly with every movent.
Bending at the waist to peer at Juliet, Roo followed her movents just to et her gaze.
“It is well that my face is hidden by the mask of night; otherwise, these cheeks would be red with a maiden’s sha.”
And the more he did, the more Juliet hid her face. A tender, affectionate scene unfolded.
“I wish to keep my decorum... and to take back the words I spoke. But... farewell, decorum! Do you love ?”
Her manner was hesitant, but her diction was precise. The composition—Juliet seated on the floor, looking up at Roo—made the difference in their status feel all the more piercing.
“You will say yes. And that word, I will believe.”
“Lady, I swear by yonder blessed moon, that tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops—”
Juliet could not trust Roo’s imdiate reply. When you love too deeply, that’s how it is. Everyone knew that feeling—of doubting the one you love, heart pounding.
“Oh, swear not by the inconstant moon, that monthly changes in her circled orb, lest that thy love prove likewise variable.”
At that, Roo slowly extended his hand. The soft-looking sleeves moved fluidly. His large, straight hand gradually peeled away the rough robe.
Juliet’s revealed face was flushed red, but she did not stop Roo’s hand.
“Then what shall I swear by?”
A note of impatience crept into his soothing voice, like a man truly gazing closely at the face of the woman he loved.
“Do not swear at all. Or if you must, swear by your gracious self, which is the god of my idolatry, and I’ll believe you.”
For a mont, silence filled the stage. Even that felt like a line.
Their gazes tangled.
Roo, who had remained standing, willingly bent his knee, lowering himself like Juliet.
“If your love be honorable, and your intent marriage, send word tomorrow—by one that I’ll procure—where and what ti thou wilt perform the rite....”
Juliet’s breath wavered as she resolved to marry Roo.
A voice that carried the reality of her situation—a poor household, a lowly status, a marriage that felt like being sold off to the wealthy Count Paris.
“And I will lay all my fortunes at thy feet.”
Even so, one could understand Juliet’s heart as she chose love.
“And follow thee my lord throughout the world.”
A smile spread across Juliet’s face beneath the lights. It was the first smile she had shown.
“....”
At the sight of that smile, Roo froze for a mont. As if ti itself had stopped.
Just from Roo’s gaze as he quietly looked at Juliet, the audience could share the sa emotion. No lines were needed.
“Lady Juliet!”
Noise from the Nurse calling out for Juliet from afar shattered the silence. Juliet looked at Roo one last ti and said,
“Farewell, farewell! Parting is such sweet sorrow that I will say good night till it be morn.”
Juliet covered her face once more with the worn robe and exited. Left alone, Roo kept his eyes fixed on the spot where Juliet had vanished.
“I’ll go to the Friar for help... and report my good fortune.”
It was like a vow. Strength settled into his calm voice.
Soon, the lights went out, and the curtain fell.
“⋯.”
The audience was quiet. Then, one by one, soft claps began. A restrained applause echoed through the hall.
‘We lost.’
Hearing that sound, Geum Bitgang reached her conclusion cleanly. The outco was painfully clear.
‘Team A must have worked hard too... what ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ a sha.’
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